goldband - I know, I always suck at my chapters that are right after a really long bout of writers block. Thank you!
lillynilly - No, I would never quit this. Thanks!
CharmedMilliE - Thanks, and they will find out soon enough, trust me!
winter blaze - Thanks and ur welcome!
piperleo4eva - Jaffa cakes? Sounds yum. Thanks! Oh, don't worry about the whole cussing thing, I was just commenting on it. I don't mind it at all, and you'll see that in later chapters (three guesses as to what those chapters are about). Yup, cussing is fun. And, you've been at the Coke? What the fk does that mean? See, that was a pun. Teehee! Thanks!
Mysterious Midnight - I know, I was bad (smacks self on hand). Feel better? You should, that really hurt. Oh, it was French, not Spanish. Sorry, I take Spanish, and tres means three in Spanish, so that's why I was confused. You Frenchie Fry! Sorry, nickname for the Frenchies (French students) at my school, and no offense is intended. Don't worry, it IS coming soon! I promise you that! It's gonna begin getting sorta intense and EXTREMELY suspenseful after the next chapter! I do promise you that! Thanks!
versatilecutie - Sorry, but it ISN't beyond her curfew, at least not tonight. It is on other nights, though. Thanks for the review!
Faith Kingsley - Hyper much? Thought so. Oh, and did you know that you are the first person to mention the connection between Daniel and the bastard Piper dated in the second season? It's unbelievable, and yes, that is what I intend this Daniel to look like. Thanks!
OTHCharmedFreak - Oh, thanks for the flattery! Sarcasm. I am so hurt! Don't worry, no offense taken. Thanks!
Magical Princess - Oh, I didn't mean to, my computer is just acting up! Thanks!
Charmed Ali - Thanks!
andy20 - Thanks!
P3-CharmedForever - Don't worry, this is faster, isn't it? Thanks!
Chapter 10...
T:T:T:T
As soon as Piper left the Manor, she dashed down to her bike, which was sitting against the Halliwell's driveway. She hopped on top of the bike, and sped off towards her house, despite her fatigue. Along the way, she silently congratulated herself for remembering to take her bike to the Manor that day. It would have taken her at least an hour to walk home if she hadn't remembered it, and she didn't have that kind of time. she knew that she had to get home by one o'clock, or else she would most certainly be severely beaten.
About twenty minutes later, Piper, thankfully, pulled up in front of her house. She quickly parked her bike by the side of her house, and dashed silently up to the front door. She wanted to be as silent as possible, just in case Daniel happened to be asleep. She knew that he would most likely be waiting for her to come home, in the case that she was late, but she was hoping that he had fallen into a drunken state of unconsciousness just so that she wouldn't have to face him. She had gone through enough emotional turmoil that night, and didn't want to go through any mental or physical torture by her 'father'.
Piper sighed as quietly as she could when she closed the door behind herself and the room was pitch black. But, suddenly, a lone table lamp flickered on. Sitting in the easy chair right next to the lamp was Daniel, a smirk on his face and an empty beer bottle in his hand. She froze in her tracks, frightened by the mere sight of him. He flicked his sleeve a bit down his arm, and checked the time on his leather digital watch. "12:55. You are very lucky, bitch." he said.
He then stood up, causing Piper to take a small step back out of fear. he strode towards her, and grabbed hold of her hair, causing her to involuntarily wince. "You were very close to the curfew, bitch." he said, and flung her into the wall. She hit it, hard, and sunk to the floor, her back pressed as hard as possible against the wall, and her legs bent in front of her to protect her abdomen. He walked forward until he was standing right above her, and looked up and down her cowering figure.
"Where are your bags?" he asked, smiling his eerie smile. "I-I didn't by anything fo-for myself. I jus-just bought st-stuff for my friends to get into th-the 'in' crowd." Piper stuttered. The events of the night, her state of tiredness, and the fact that Daniel was now towering over her combined to increase her normal rate of fear and emotional stress. "And what friends would those be?" Daniel asked, kneeling in front of her now, putting his face right in front of hers. not wanting to endanger her friends' lives, she wanted to make up names, but she couldn't think of any. She frantically searched around the room from something, anything, that would lead her to think of names. Finally, she spotted something on a tabletop that sparked an idea.
"Their names are Louisa, may, Ally, Cody, Lilly, and Woody." Piper said, hoping that the names wouldn't be easily connectable. She had spotted one of her all-time favorite books, LITTLE WOMEN by Louisa May Alcott, on the table. Daniel, not spotting the connection between the names but thinking that she didn't mention everyone, raised the beer bottle right above her head, as if he were preparing to bring it down on her skull. "Are you sure that's all?" he asked, noticing as her eyes were drawn to the bottle. She nodded her head shakily.
"Fair enough." he said, and harshly pulled her up by her neck. he rammed her into the nearby door frame, and then threw her rougly to the floor. "No, get, before I change my mind." Daniel said, pointing in the direction of Piper's bedroom. She scrambled onto her feet and ran to her room, not wanting to anger him further.
T:T:T
Just as Daniel was about to head towards his room, he heard a noise behind him. he whirled around, and immediately noticed a figure in the shadows. Knowing who the figure was, Daniel kneeled on the floor, his head bend down. "My Liege." he said, respect dripping from his gruff voice. Out of the shadows came a tall, cloaked figure. "You've done good work, Greasehair, very good work." a deep, evil voice stated. "She is very frightened of you." "Thank you, Master." Daniel said. "But, may I ask the reason for your pleasurable visit?" The cloaked figure seemed to nod. "As you know, she is reaching the age of sixteen. The date on which she was born is in only two months. Do you know what that means?" it asked. "No, My Liege, I do not." Daniel replied. "Incompetent fool. It means that she is reaching the Age of Choice. The age decided upon by both sides as to when someone can decide their fate. To be good, or to be evil. We need her to choose evil."
Daniel dared to look up at the figure. "But, My Liege, she is too good. She would never commit the irreversible act of killing an innocent. Her heart is too pure, maybe the purest of all of the wretched Halliwell witches. She did not even kill the flies that infest some of our past abodes." Daniel said. "The purest of them all? You know as well as I that she is our only chance to defeat Good permanently. She does not know of her powers yet, and once she does, make sure that she chooses evil." the figure demanded. "But, My Liege, what powers? She does not have them." Daniel was confused, very confused.
"Correction, Greasehair, she DIDN'T have them, she does now. Well, not technically, but they are somewhere inside of her. Thanks to the potions that we have given her every year on her day of birth, she will not be able to use her powers without knowing that she has them. But since the elder Halliwell witch is now deceased, the younger witches will be able to find her, maybe with scrying, or the wretched 'middle' sister's power of premonition. The magic that kept them from finding her has been stopped, so it is now possible to find her."
"What shall I do because of that, My Liege?" Daniel asked. "We need to speed up the process, to make her evil a bit before her birthday, for her to be predisposed to it on the date. You have done quite a good job with putting her through, what most call it, 'hell', but you need to bring it up a notch. You need to make her feel like she will never be safe, attacking her more and spying on her. Punish her much more greatly for her faults and mistakes. She needs to feel as if she would do anything to get out of the life you have made for her. Even kill." the evil figure stated. "But, I'm not an innocent, I'm a demon. How could she kill an innocent if her rage would be towards me?" Daniel asked.
"Well, there's a prominent social worker here in San Francisco, helping many people with their problems. Disgusting. You must find some way to inform her that this woman is the reason that she is with you, so she kill the woman." the figure instructed. "Yes, Master." Daniel said. "Don't forget, bring it up a notch." the figure said, and then flamed out. Daniel looked up at the ceiling, and smiled.
T:T:T
Right where Daniel was looking, Piper was sleeping in her bed. The day had ben very draining, especially in the emotional area, so she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. She was just feeling restful in her subconscious when she was awakened by a door slamming open. Piper shot up, her hand over her heart in surprise. She glanced frantically around the room, looking for the cause of the noise. She looked up at her door, and saw it open, with Daniel standing in the doorway. Her immediate reaction was to back up against the headrest.
"Hello, bitch." he said, slamming the door behind himself as he stepped into the room. She just watched as he moved closer, her eyes wide open, and her body shaking. He reached forward and caressed her cheek. She gulped, watching the motion of his hand. At the bottom of her cheek, he suddenly grabbed her throat. Hard. She began struggling for air through his strangling grip. "I heard you got a B on your latest science test." Daniel sneered. "I'm not happy about that. You could have done better. You could have gotten an A." Piper began seeing big black spots in front of her eyes. "You should have tried harder, knowing what would happen if you displeased me. I bet you thought I wouldn't find out. I did find out. You mess up again, I will find out. You better watch your step, because you never know when someone's watching. I'll let you in on a little secret. I'll ALWAYS be watching." he whispered. Those were the last words she heard before she fell into the realm of unconsciousness.
T:T:T
Five miles away, Phoebe Halliwell shot up out of her bed, her hand on her throat, gasping for breath. She searched frantically. around her room, double checking that her dream was just that, a dream. It wasn't a dream, actually. It was a nightmare, and one that was similar to the other that she had been having recently. Phoebe was really beginning to worry about the dreams, but didn't want to worry her family. They had other thing on their minds now, especially now that Grams was... dead. The very though of Grams brought tears to Phoebe's eyes. Suddenly, Phoebe's door flew open, and Leo ran in.
Phoebe nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden noise, as it reminded her of the nightmare. Leo, thinking that she had only jumped because he had woken her up, apologized. "Phoebe, I'm so sorry, but I had to tell you and your sisters something. Prue and Paige are already waiting in the living room, and all we need now is you." Leo said. Phoebe, sensing the urgency in his voice, followed him down their grand staircase and into their foyer.
"It's about time!" Paige said impatiently as soon as Phoebe walked into the living room. "Jeez, I was just woken up, Paige." Phoebe responded irritably, although she wasn't speaking the truth. "Guys, now is not the time to argue." Leo tried to mediate. "You're right. Two in the morning the day after our grandmother died is not the time to argue. It is the time to know why the hell we're up this early!" Prue said, withheld anger seeping through. Leo, a bit alarmed yet a bit used to her emotional hostility, decided that she was speaking the truth.
"Well, the Elders have been discussing what to do with your current situation. They decided that having school, lives, struggling to stay afloat, and saving the world would be a little much for you." Leo was about to continue, but Phoebe cut him off. "They've been smart, for once." she commented, rolling her eyes. Leo, deciding to ignore the comment, continued. "So, they decided to send you a parental figure to watch over you so that you wouldn't have to worry about social services, and they have decided to pay him for his work so that you could all stay afloat. This is, of course, only until Prue is in her Junior year in college." Leo informed them.
Paige rolled her eyes. "So, what, they gonna send us some old lady who likes tea and cookies or something?" she asked, a bit annoyed. Leo smiled, and shook his head. "Nope, sorry, no tea and cookies." he said. "Do you want me to call him?" "Call him?" Prue asked. "You're guardian is a whitelighter." Leo informed, and the girls nodded their heads. "I wanna meet who I'm gonna have to call 'dad'." Paige said, sounding VERY annoyed that she would have to pretend to like the person watching over herself and her sisters. "I don't think you'll have a problem doing that, Paige." Leo said, and the girls arched their eyebrows, very confused.
"SAM!" Leo called, his head faced upwards. Blue and white orbs swirled into the room, and materialized into a middle-aged man. The man was about average height, with prematurely gray hair and some unshaven whiskers. "Sam?" Phoebe asked, facing Leo. "Wait, Sam as in mom's whitelighter?" Prue asked, and Leo nodded his head. Paige turned, open mouthed, to the man. "Daddy?" she asked, and Sam nodded. Surprisingly, a grin broke out on Paige's face. "Daddy!" she squealed, jumped off the couch. She ran over to same, and squeezed him tight. Sam, with an ear-to-ear grin spread across his face, hugged her back.
Not wanting to interfere in the special moment, Prue and Phoebe huddled a bit away from their two happy family members. "I'm so happy that Paige's dad could come take care of us, even if ours couldn't." Prue said, and Phoebe nodded. Prue face the two huggers again. "I guess thing aren't so bad after all." she added. "Yeah, I guess they aren't." Phoebe said. Her face was unconvinced, though. That dream of hers was still tugging on her mind...
T:T:T:T
AN: I'm sorry if I made the sisters seem a little to under-grievous in the last part of the fic, but they had already cried quite a lot, and Sam showed up. Also, when they did flashbacks to Grams' death in the show, Piper was the one that was all emotional about it. And, since Piper isn't there, they aren't as emotional. Also, they have already suffered quite a lot of losses, and one that they haven't discovered is a found yet, so they are kind of used to loss. Also, with the demon's name, I just couldn't resist, it was too tempting! Please, please review! It would oh so totally make my day!