Some minutes later in Lucy found herself standing alone on the doorstep of the manor, the words of warning from the others in her mind.
"Don't mention magic or time travel or anything to the sisters," Chris had told her.
"Remember don't mention we are related to her, or why we can't see her, or how you know about her," said Wyatt.
"If a demon shows up; run!" came from Mel.
Rolling her eyes at the advice of her companions, she wondered if they thought she was stupid. She knew why she was going and not them: she didn't need reminding. Still she couldn't help snigger at the thought of them hiding outside in the bushes.
Ringing the doorbell, she waited for an answer.
"I don't see why we didn't just orb in," snapped Piper.
"And freak them out even more?" asked Phoebe
"I know your right," sighed Piper, "but I'm just worried."
"So am I honey, remember Mel's missing too, besides if we had orbed here Paige wouldn't be able to be out searching the underworld as we speak."
"Alright, alright," sighed Piper, "but if they don't answer soon I'm blowing up the door."
Phoebe rang the doorbell once more, "Mr and Mrs Hampton?" she called; "we really need to talk to you."
They heard some shuffling inside and the door swung open…
"Mrs Halliwell?" asked Lucy
"Yes," replied the harsh looking old woman who answered the door.
"Um, hi," she said
"You're a bit young to be a friend of the girls," interrupted the witch, "you're not the girl who Pipers been tutoring are you? She told you she can't help you tonight."
"Um no," said Lucy quietly, "I'm here to see you; I have a problem."
The witch raised a curious eyebrow.
"A magical problem," whispered the girl.
The witch looked at the girl suspiciously; "you don't look like a demon," she concluded, "and the girls are out, so I guess you can come in. Your friends too."
"My friends?" asked the girl worriedly.
"Yes the ones hiding behind that fuchsia plant."
"Oh er, I don't think they can. They weren't meant to be seen."
"Why not?"
Desperately grasping for an explanation that wouldn't give away too much, "future consequences?" she suggested.
They heard laughter come from behind the bush.
"Hello, are you Mr Hampton?" said Phoebe quickly; "we need to talk to you about something."
"I know you don't I?" asked the man, "you're that ask Phoebe. Sorry this isn't the time."
"Perhaps this isn't the time because something strange and upsetting just happened?" asked Phoebe accessing her empath abilities, " you're upset about something."
"Yes," he snapped, "now can you come back later my youngest daughter just disappeared."
The two sisters looked at each other
"Let us in," demanded Piper, "we can help."
The man looked her over for a moment before standing aside to let them in. As they walked to the living room they saw a woman looking worriedly out her window.
"Who are these people?" asked the woman
"They said they could help," replied Mr Hampton.
"Help how? Do they know where my daughter is?"
"Unfortunately not," said Phoebe, "but if you tell us what happened perhaps we can help."
"What happened? We left the room for 5 minutes and when we came back Lucy was gone and so was that boy! He must have taken her somewhere!"
Phoebe could feel her sister's anger building at Mrs Hampton accusations about Chris, fearing an outburst from Piper she spoke.
" 'That boy' is my nephew," she said calmly, " we came to tell him that his brother and my daughter are missing" Lying came far too easily.
The look of shock on Mrs Hampton's face was unmissable.
" We should tell Teri," Mr Hampton, "She's out looking for them while we wait for the police," he explained.
"Right!" snapped the old witch to the 4 people now sitting in her living room, "who are you and what are you doing here?"
The three younger witches looked at each other; they knew lying to grams was hard, even when she was dead.
"er…" began Lucy and grams turned to glare at her.
"We're not demons," declared Mel distracting her grams from Lucy, "we just weren't supposed to get seen."
Grams looked at Mel, waiting for a better explanation, when no one spoke she said, "well I could just get a truth potion and force you to tell me."
The three witches laughed.
"What?" snapped grams.
"Nothing," said three voices at once.
"What?"
Think of something thought Chris to his family
Like what? Admitting that we are her great grandchildren and that last time she suggested using that on us we were all admitted our secrets by bursting out in song?
Good point, but we need to say something; you know how difficult keeping secrets from grams is
Only because she's dead you fool.
Forget it came their cousins voice, I'll handle it; you know I'm the best at this.
Mel no…
"Its just that truth potions don't work," said the girl, "I tried brewing one I read about in a magazine and all that happened was it made these two throw up."
"Alright," said their grams, "so who the hell are you? Lets start with your names? You first," she said pointing at Mel, "full names mind."
"I'm Melinda Perry," she said relying on her cousin's alias.
Oh well done sighed Chris, it's going to be even more difficult for other me now.
Sorry, first thing that came to mind
"I'm Lucy Hampton," replied the other girl honestly.
Wait a second! 'The first thing that came to mind!' thought Chris
Your point being? asked his cousin
We're thinking this! We're not talking!
Yeah we always do dumbass
No! Chris's right! Thought Wyatt it's a power! We have our powers!
Precisely
But we couldn't use them; this just got a whole lot more complicated
"Hello?" asked grams, "I asked you your names! Are you going to answer me or don't you want my help?"
"Wyatt," said Wyatt pointing at himself and then pointing at his brother, "Chris."
Wait a second, realised Mel; you guys tested your powers by trying to orb right?
Yeah
Well that's a whitelighter power; this comes from our witch side.
Mel you're a genius, replied Wy, I'll try to use my witch powers
Concentrating hard on only doing something small, Wyatt made the picture frame on the other side of the room fall off its hook.
They're working
Great now we can get ourselves home, lets get out of here.
Wait, thought Mel, why don't we make things a whole lot easier for other you…
"Ok I'll level with you," began Mel, "We're from the future, we kind of accidentally sent our selves here and we were going to ask for your help to get us back to our own time. But while we're here I might as well sort some things out."
"Mel," said Chris threateningly but she ignored him.
"When you next see him," she gestured at Mel, "he won't remember being here because it's happened before now in our timeline, but you have got to trust him, and persuade the sisters to trust him. But not Gideon; don't trust Gideon."
Nicely done Mel, thought Chris sarcastically, why don't you just out and out tell her everything about the future?
She's Phoebe's daughter! We should have known she couldn't keep a secret.
"What?" asked Grams disbelieving, "Gideon's a highly respected Elder! Who are you to go around making accusations like that?"
"Oh well done Mel," sighed Wyatt, "You just broke the first rule of time travel; never ever reveal anything about the future."
"And we're learning this from Chris' other reality right? The one where he split his parents up, got thrown out of the house and died?"
"On the plus side Wyatt's not the ruler of all evil," joked Chris.
"Quiet!" yelled Grams, " Will you all stop bickering and tell me what is going on!"
"Er nothing," said Wyatt lying, "I think we can sort out our own problems actually. But could you maybe erase our being here from your memory? We don't want to mess up the future do we now…"
"You can't honestly expect me to just ignore this? To erase it from my memory, as much as I'd like to? For all I know you could be demons after me or the girls."
I told you coming here wasn't a good idea: that we'd mess up the future…
Shut up know it all
"If we were demons, we'd be the most useless demons ever," began Chris, stopping abruptly as he heard the front door open.
"Grams I'm home!" called an energetic voice from the hall, "and I've had the best day: I've got a date with…"