Warning: Minor swearword used in this chapter.
Chapter 13
On Thursday morning, Orion and Julius met again in the summerhouse in the heavens about two hours after the witch brothers had arrived at their Earth home safely. The little building was Orion's own building that he'd created with his magic for small gatherings, so no one else used it without his permission.
After Julius arrived, Orion stood facing his friend in the center of the structure. "Now that the immediate danger has been averted, we can relax once again."
"Yeah, they got the kids back in one piece," agreed Julius, now much happier. "I wonder if they're going to invite any ghosts to their party as is the Halloween tradition for witches."
"It would be fitting for them to summon Brianna and thank her for helping them - although she wasn't with them when she did help."
"I was thinking they'd rather summon one of the peacekeepers."
Orion looked at Julius with a stunned expression. "I assume you mean one of the peacekeepers who IS actually a ghost and not an Elder or Whitelighter."
"I could use my glamour power so I look like a ghost, couldn't I?" Like demons and some warlocks, Whitelighters had a glamour power they could use to take on a different appearance.
"It doesn't work for personal purposes," said Orion sternly.
"I've had it with this damn disguise!" shouted the other Elder, before orbs appeared around him and he changed back to his true appearance with brown hair.
"Words like that aren't appropriate for Elders," complained Orion calmly.
"I'm sorry. But I really can't stand that long hair - it keeps getting in my eyes. Why did I ever agree to stay in that ridiculous disguise?"
The Elder Chris Larabee walked into the summerhouse. "You promised me you'd behave yourself. You know they'll separate us even more if you don't."
Julius, now with short dark-brown hair and a mustache, walked to the newcomer and enveloped him in a bear hug. "Hey, you ol' war dog, how you been?"
"Busy," answered the blond Elder. "There are a lot of plans being made in the Underworld since their discovery of the prophecy, and we have to make sure that no evil stops it being fulfilled."
"And you're going to order Whitelighters to make their charges fight those evils, right?"
"I wish - but since no witches are allowed to know of the prophecy, we don't have a good enough reason why they should fight evil that isn't immediately threatening the safety of any innocents."
Julius put a supportive arm around his friend's shoulders. "Chris, ol' buddy, you just need to use that wise ol' head of yours and think of some good enough reasons."
After Chris Larabee had died, the blond peacekeeper had been given the chance by the Elders to continue helping good people, and had accepted the immediate appointment of Elder.
Buck Wilmington, not wanting to be separated from his old friend, had asked if he could be an Elder as well, and the Elder committee had agreed, although reluctantly. The Elders didn't approve of Buck's former lifestyle where he'd dated a lot of different women before finally settling down to raise a family. Even after Buck was married, he'd still flirted with women quite a lot. On becoming an Elder, the Elders had insisted that Buck change his appearance and name, thus severing his former identity.
Unfortunately, Elder Chris had been given a lot of work to do since he'd been appointed to the team responsible for ensuring the future safety of the prophesied "Charmed Seven." Chris didn't often get to see his friend Buck anymore as the brunet worked elsewhere. They were both pretty certain that the Elders had arranged it like that to keep them apart. The Elders were fonder of Chris than they were of Buck, believing that Buck had less good in him than Chris.
"Wouldn't you jus' love to visit our prophesied descendants at their Halloween party, Chris?"
"We can't do that, Buck."
Buck smiled at Chris, his expression showing he had a plan so that he could visit the Potters for Halloween. He would love to meet the descendants of his old friends. "Those boys are gonna forget about meeting us in the Old West, although slowly, and before they can start to wonder if there's some special reason for their group echoing ours, they'll have forgotten everything they learned from that book and their time-traveling."
"They aren't that forgetful, Buck," said Chris, rubbing his forehead as though he felt a headache coming on.
"When they're asleep, perhaps the memory-dust fairy will visit them - with the slow acting type of memory dust."
Larabee sighed - it seemed like Buck had an answer for everything. Now how would he wriggle out of visiting a group of witches who were the peacekeepers' descendants on Halloween and having to recount his experiences to them? Chris knew that Buck would tell a few embarrassing stories about him.
"They could learn a lot from us - it will help them protect innocents better," explained Buck persuasively, sitting down sideways inside the summerhouse and resting his legs on the bench.
"Okay, but we'll have to ask our superiors if we can go to the party first."
"They'll let us go, I'm sure they will." Wilmington grinned from ear to ear - it would be so good to be on the Earth plane for a party. He would've liked to have seen his witch descendant, but knew that he was forbidden to get close to the witch while his powers were bound and he was being kept in the dark about real magic.
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On Friday, Gloria spent the whole morning finishing the Halloween costumes for Chris, Vin and JD. Josiah had that day off from his detective job, and he arrived at the house about mid-morning with his completed costume that resembled a Native American chief. Now everyone had their costumes for the party except Ezra and Nathan, who were both using magic to create theirs, providing there weren't any new powers that came with their outfits. Gloria didn't want them having to face the consequences of using magic for personal gain.
"Mother, may I see your costume?" asked Josiah as he sat in a lounge-chair, drinking coffee. Having no idea of what costumes his parents had hired for the party, he was anxious to find out what characters they would be dressed as.
"You'll have to wait and see tonight, Dear," answered Gloria as she finished using the sewing machine on JD's special cowboy trousers. From the start, she'd wanted everything to look authentic, so had gotten some ideas from some old westerns that were among Terrence's video collection. She'd noticed that some of the boxes had someone else's name on them, as though Terrence had borrowed them, and then kept the tapes for his own collection. Gloria intended to ask him sometime if he'd borrowed them or just bought them off someone who'd already written their name onto the boxes.
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Meanwhile, up in the heavens, Buck had asked a more senior Elder if he and Chris could be the Halloween guests at the Potters' party. This had caused a short discussion between that Elder and a few others who had just orbed in after being telepathically summoned by him.
Buck stood waiting in the distance, unable to hear what the Elders were saying because they were magically blocking their words from him. "Come on," he muttered impatiently.
Orion and an unusually short Whitelighter orbed over, as if they'd heard Buck's words. The Whitelighter had the hood of their white robes up so the angel couldn't be identified.
"You cannot go to the Potter house since you are the ancestor of the witch they haven't been united with yet, and Chris is too busy to attend," informed Orion. "We have chosen someone more relevant to go instead." Orion looked at the figure beside him to indicate that was to be the party guest.
"Aren't you a little short for a Whitelighter?" Buck asked the figure stood beside Orion, trying to put down the person who got to go to the party instead of him. Wilmington wondered if his behavior in front of Orion earlier that day had affected the Elders' decision to stop him going to the Potter family's party.
"He is only a temporary Whitelighter so that he can attend the party tonight," answered Orion, preventing the figure from having to speak. "After your friend's misuse of his ghostly abilities, we decided not to send the party guest in his usual form."
"Talking of Michael AKA Vin Senior, where is he now?"
"He is working in the heavens library where he cannot cause any further harm to the prophecy."
Shaking his head in disgust, Buck refrained from shouting angrily at the Elder. "Michael has seen the error of his ways though - he won't make any further attempts to reveal the prophecy to our descendants."
The short robed Whitelighter whispered something to Orion and Orion whispered back. Then he turned to Buck. "If he had kept his promise to us that he would stay away from his wife, he wouldn't have been killed by that Darklighter. He has to face the consequences for his actions or he will just continue down the path of self-destruction that he has already been rescued from once. We are only trying to help him."
"Junior won't like having his movements so restricted," warned Buck, trying to figure out if he knew the short guy in the white robes.
After reading Buck's mind, the short temporary Whitelighter backed away from the Elder, not wanting Wilmington to discover his identity yet.
"You will resume your identity as Julius straight away," ordered Orion sternly. "The peacekeeper Buck Wilmington no longer exists."
Buck nodded with reluctance, not wanting to end up doing menial work like Tanner, or giving the Elders a reason to mistrust him as much as his friend. 'Buck Wilmington will ALWAYS exist, ' he thought to himself.
A low chuckle came from the short Whitelighter, before he orbed away to prepare some stories to tell at the party.
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The evening of the party soon arrived, and the boys were busy in their rooms getting ready for the party.
Chris was the first son to finish getting ready, and waited in the lounge downstairs for his girlfriend, Sarah, to arrive.
After ten minutes of waiting, the doorbell rang, and Chris sprang up from the sofa to answer it. Standing on the doorstep was Sarah, dressed as a fairy, complete with two pink transparent wings stuck to the dress's back. Chris lent in and gave her a brief kiss before leading her into the house.
"I'm glad you could come tonight," said Chris as he led his girlfriend into the house.
"Me too," said Sarah, happy to be able to spend some more time with Chris.
The couple walked into the lounge and sat together on the Potters' luxuriously soft sofa.
"You look amazing," complimented Chris, his voice soft as he was overcome with emotion at how lovely Sarah looked.
"Thanks, you look very handsome yourself as a cowboy," said Sarah with a smile. The glitter she'd sprinkled in her hair shimmered as it was hit by the light.
"I prefer 'Gunslinger' - this character didn't work with cattle."
"Don't be getting too comfortable you two, I need some help setting up refreshments," said Gloria as she walked into the room in her costume. She was dressed as Queen Victoria, the longest reigning ruler in English history.
Chris and Sarah stood up after studying Gloria's costume for a brief moment.
"You look amazing, Mrs. Potter," said Sarah, awestruck by how good Gloria looked in the hired costume.
"Thank you, Sarah. You look lovely as a fairy."
"Chris told me not to come as anything evil - I think it's a good idea to dress as good characters since we fight evil all the time. You wouldn't believe how many evil things I had to help my parents vanquish this week!"
Giving Sarah a look of understanding, Gloria responded to the girl's comment. "You need a rest then, Dear. You two stay here and the younger boys can help me instead." The woman then left the room to call the other boys to help her.
Just after Gloria left the lounge, JD and Vin ran downstairs and into the room. "Sarah! Sarah! Look at our cool costumes!" shouted Vin, as he approached his brother's girlfriend.
"Wow, you both look like proper cowboys," complimented the girl appreciatively, sure that the younger boys wouldn't mind being called cowboys.
"You look like a real fairy," said JD while he climbed onto the sofa to look at Sarah's wings attached to her back. "Can you fly?"
Sarah giggled. "No, Sweetie; they're not real."
"You shoulda got ones that can make you fly."
"I'm quite happy with my feet firmly on the ground." Sarah wasn't fond of heights, so had been very careful to get wings that wouldn't make her fly.
Vin gently took Sarah's hand in his. "Ya gotta come an' see my Lego building, Sarah." Before the events of Wednesday, Vin had been making a big tower with his Lego bricks. While dressing for the party, he'd also been finishing the building so it would be ready to show Sarah.
"Okay, then." Standing up, Sarah flashed Chris an apologetic smile and then went out of the room with Vin.
JD sat on the sofa next to Chris. "Can we go trick-or-treating?"
"Sorry, Kid," answered Chris. "It's too dangerous while there's so much real evil outside."
"Okay," said JD reluctantly. "Are we gonna play games at the party?"
Chris nodded and then stood up. "Come on, let's go and see what everyone's doing."
"Games like apple-bobbing and..."
Chris cut JD off before he started listing every game he could think of. "We'll play plenty of games after the special Halloween meal, but not too many or we won't have time for a special Halloween visitor."
JD looked up at his older brother. "Who Nathan? He's just our Whitelighter."
"No, silly - he's a party-guest anyway. Nathan's bringing someone, but he said it's a surprise."
"A ghost? They're scary." JD looked round the hallway nervously, scared that the ghost would appear at any minute.
"I'm not sure, but I know it will be someone good and they won't hurt anyone else good. How come you're scared of ghosts, but not demons?" It would never cease to amaze Chris how children's minds worked - it was a total mystery to him why his brother was more scared of things that didn't look as scary as demons.
"I dunno. Maybe 'cause I don't see as many ghosts as demons."
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Upstairs, Ezra had said his transformation spell and now looked like the red costumed Daredevil from his comics. He studied himself in the mirror hanging on his bedroom wall. "Perfect," he said, glad that he had worded the spell carefully enough so he didn't get any Daredevil powers, or lose his sight like Daredevil had. Daredevil's other senses had been heightened when he lost his sight because he'd come into contact with some radioactive waste.
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Soon, everyone sat down to their special Halloween meal in the kitchen. Gloria and Josiah had made all the food for the meal that included, among other things, various cakes cut into appropriate shapes such as skulls and witches on broomsticks. The party guests had Halloween punch the color of blood, which JD and Vin thought was cool, although a lot of it ended up on them when they tried to pretend it was real blood. Thankfully, the punch was only similar to blood in color, so no one was fooled. Gloria had allowed there to be evil looking cakes and drink to make the party seem a little like a Halloween one.
When they were offered pumpkin pie, JD and Vin both looked warily at it, unsure of whether they'd like it or not.
"Just try a little, boys," encouraged Terrence, eager to get the boys liking more types of food. Too often, they looked at vegetables or fruit but didn't risk tasting them for fear they'd taste horrible.
Vin decided to be brave, and dug his spoon into the pie. He bought it up to his mouth and licked a little off the spoon. Liking it, Vin tried a little more and then licked the spoon clean. "I like it."
Following his brother's example, JD tried some of the pie, and also liking the taste of it, was soon eating more.
Gloria was impressed - she'd felt certain that the children wouldn't like pumpkin pie. "I'm glad you two like that, you can have some more if you've got room."
Both boys eagerly nodded and were soon tucking into second helpings of their mom's delicious pie.
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After dinner, the family played apple-bobbing using a very large bowl, which Gloria had bought especially for the party. JD and Vin proved to be very good at the game. After the game, Nathan suggested he call their special guest, and Gloria and Terrence agreed.
After Nathan had telepathically summoned the guest, a mass of white orbs appeared and then vanished to reveal a Whitelighter dressed in long white hooded robes that were what Whitelighters often wore for meetings in the heavens. The hood was up, hiding the angel's face.
"I'm sure y'all thought I'd bring a ghost, but this visitor's particularly appropriate after what happened on Wednesday," announced Nathan with a large grin.
The figure pulled his hood down to reveal he was a male angel, receiving gasps of astonishment from Josiah and Chris, who instantly recognized him. Then the visitor stepped closer to the dark-haired little boy, who was staring at him, and bent down to be level with the child. "I see you have the Dunne family trait of being small for your age."
"I ain't that small, Sir," answered little JD politely.
"No, of course not. You're as tall as you feel on the inside." The Whitelighter put his hand over his heart to show what he meant.
Little JD looked at the man's raised-heel shoes poking out from his robes. "You've got tall shoes," he commented. "So you're way shorter really!"
"Yeah, I am," answered the angel, embarrassed by the boy's observation.
"Don't you feel tall 'nuff on the inside?"
"He didn't come here to talk about height, Kid," said Nathan, knowing the conversation between the shorter-than-average Whitelighter and the child could go on forever.
"Sorry," apologized the angel and boy at the same time.
Nathan looked exasperated. "Only little JD's the kid around here."
"Course, Nate," said the Whitelighter, JD Dunne. He was very honored that the Elders had chosen him to visit his two descendants and their adopted family. As Whitelighter JD's descendant Michelle Dunne was the mother of both Vin and JD, it meant that the Dunne ancestor was related to both of the young prophesied witches.
"Please call me Nathan." Still not wanting the men to know that he was the Nathan from the Old West, Jackson wanted to try and pretend he wasn't too friendly with the angel of his former peacekeeper friend.
"Sorry, Nathan." Temporary Whitelighter JD walked toward his other young descendant, Vin Tanner, amazed at how fate had bought together his peacekeeper friend, Vin (AKA Michael) Tanner, and his Dunne witch descendant, Michelle. "Hi, Vin. Did you know you have your father's eyes and your mother's nose?"
Vin giggled shyly. "Did you know my mom and dad, Sir?" The little boy had no idea of the Whitelighter's identity, but realized he must know what his parents looked like to make the comment he had.
The Whitelighter JD didn't answer, knowing he had to be careful what he revealed to the children - he wouldn't make the same mistake as Michael and lose the Elders' respect and trust.
"You got hair the same color as mine," commented little JD, having no idea that the Whitelighter was his ancestor, who was usually a ghost but was temporarily a Whitelighter while he was visiting the Potters.
"So we do," answered angel JD. "I came here to tell you some Old West style Halloween stories. Please sit in a circle around me and I'll begin."
The family sat on the carpet around angel JD, looking forward to hearing some scary stories. Nathan remained standing next to the Potters' visitor, there to make sure that the former peacekeeper didn't let anything slip that he shouldn't.
JD, the temporary Whitelighter, began to tell them a story about strange noises heard one night in Four Corners and how all the horses in the livery stable suddenly vanished into thin air. Everyone waited to hear more, as JD paused for effect.
When the angel didn't continue, young Vin got impatient. "What happened? Did they come back?"
"They were missing for four whole weeks before they returned but..."
"But what?"
"Ummm, I can't remember - it was so long ago," lied JD. The story was actually one that Buck had made up and told him, but he hadn't really been listening near the end of it.
Everyone groaned - they'd been waiting for the end of the story.
"JD - that wasn't funny," scolded Nathan. "You have to tell them complete stories."
"Okay," said JD, and began to recount one of his real scary adventures to the group.
While the family listened, all was quiet in the house except for the sound of their visitor's voice. No evil creatures attacked and the Potter family's first ever Halloween party was a complete success. Terrence, who was dressed as Henry the Eighth, the English king who'd had six wives, decided they'd have more parties in the future providing they always went so well.
Gloria was also thinking that they should have more Halloween parties because of how well the current one was working out. She just hoped that next time Terrence wouldn't dress as a man who'd had so many wives, especially since two of those had been beheaded!
While no one was watching, the history book, that Gloria had been magically forced to take from the library, vanished. All memories of their Old West ancestors and their ancestors' friends would be forgotten by the family because of the Elder who visited everyone while they slept that night. He sprinkled memory dust on each witch and then said an incantation to make sure only certain things were forgotten. It wouldn't do any good if the witch family forgot important things like how to protect innocents and vanquish evil.
Back in the heavens, Michael Tanner was changed back into a ghost after he'd been a Whitelighter for twenty-four hours. At the request of the Elders, he watched his son growing up from a distance, but didn't try to make contact with Vin or his family. The Whitelighter knew that one day he would meet his son as an adult and then perhaps they could spend some time together.
It wouldn't be too long before another evil plot was hatched to threaten the prophecy of "The Charmed Seven," but the Potters' sons had shown that they were more than capable of foiling any attempts that the other side made to ruin the adopted brothers' destiny.
The End.
There will be more stories in The Charmed Seven Past AU - this is only the second of many (most of which haven't even been written yet!)