Disclaimer: I do not own charmed!
Chapter 8
While Victor and Patty were wrangling the girls, Leo was enjoying some quality time with his sons back at the manor.
Chris was effortlessly cooking a meal for them, while Wyatt worked round him, cleaning up the kitchen.
Leo smiled at the pair as they interacted. Wyatt, feeling a pair of eyes on him as he scrubbed the countertop, turned to face his father.
"Dad you're doing it again!"
"Doing what?"
"staring at us, you kept doing it all last night too"
"no I didn't" Leo flustered, slightly embarrassed that it had been so obvious
" Yeah dad you were" Chris added, "every time I turned round you had some kind of a goofy grin on your face. What gives?"
"Nothing – I'm just happy y'know, that you two grow up happy and healthy, and you get on so well"
"why would we not get on?" Wyatt puzzled "I mean, we've wound each other up over the years, had the occasional argument, but we're still brothers"
"No, reason, it's just you never know.."
"Come to think about it, dad, why are we here?"
"you said, yourself, a spell backfired"
"Yes, but the spell was cast in order to help settle unresolved parenting issues, we all know that grandma and grandpa have enough of those to fill a book, but why would you have issues with us" Chris pressed
"Yeah, Just us, I mean, why isn't Peony here too?" Wyatt wondered
"Wyatt!" Chris hissed
"What?" Wyatt remained oblivious
"Future consequences – did you learn nothing in "Dimensions and Vortexes: An Introduction to Time Travel', when we studied it at school?"
Leo in the meanwhile realised that he was between a rock and a hard place, this Chris was every bit as perceptive as the one who had faded in his arms, he wouldn't rest until he got an answer. However, this Chris had also had a happy upbringing in a loving family, and Leo didn't want to shatter that by revealing what happened in the alternative timeline.
"Let's just say, we got a visitor once, you mother and I, who gave us a glance at how the future might have been, and we didn't like what we saw"
"How so? – what did we enter the dark side?" Wyatt joked
The colour drained from Leo's face and he swayed slightly on his chair.
"Dad!" Wyatt panicked "Dad I was only joking.."
Leo remained mute.
"How could we evil?" he demanded of his younger.
"I don't know" Chris shrugged
"It doesn't matter" Leo finally spoke "I shouldn't have..shouldn't have mentioned anything, "
"You couldn't just keep something like that from us" Wyatt cried
"I said, it doesn't matter, it was another timeline, a 'what may have been'" Leo began trying to back track frantically. " I was a horrible father, who abandoned his children, so there you have it, that's my issue, I was scared that despite all my best efforts, I would let you down again"
"But you didn't!" Chris' primary concern was to comfort his father "You were all ways there for us, and when you couldn't show up to the odd swimming competition, or parents evening we always knew that there was a very good reason"
"Really?"
"Really" This time it was Wyatt's turn to reassure him "You and mum were the best, still are the best. Yeah you drive us mad on occasion, but we wouldn't trade you"
"That's all I needed to know" Leo smiled
"so about this alternative future thing.." Wyatt asked
"No" Leo's voice was firm "I am not getting into that. Trust me"
"Okay" Wyatt and Chris agreed almost reluctantly – they did after all know that their father always had a good reason for the things he did.
"Good" Leo smiled "So who is this Peony…..?".
XXX
Patty sighed as laid 3 sets of fresh underwear and pyjamas on the bed in Paige's room. Even though she was bone tired she had enjoyed today, spending time with girls and Victor as a family, something that had rarely happened even before her death.
"Patty" Victor yelled from the bathroom where he was supervising bath time "could you bring some more towels"
"sure" Patty grabbed a few and headed down the corridor.
She entered the bathroom to find 3 little dark haired girls sat in a row in the tub, all smiling, and the eldest 2 blowing bubbles. It would have been a Kodak moment except for the fact that…
"…why is Phoebe still wearing that fairy dress?" Patty demanded
"because she refused to take it off and I was too tired to argue" Victor replied
"so you dumped her in the tub with in on?"
"yeah, I just scrubbed round it" Victor explained
"Honestly Victor, sometimes I wonder if you have an ounce of common sense"
"At least I succeeded in bathing them without a temper tantrum" He handed squirming baby Paige to Patty to dry and then proceeded to lift Piper out and attempted to towel dry her hair.
"Pity you didn't think about how we are going to convince Phoebe to take the dress off so she can get dry?" Patty gestured toward her middle child who was still splashing in the tub.
"You always have to find fault don't you"
"Look at me mummy, I'm a ballerina" Phoebe called standing up and stretching her arms out.
"Yes, that's wonderful darling" Patty called as she covered Paige with talcum powder "Victor, I'll I'm saying is.."
"I said, look at me!" Phoebe shouted
Before her startled parents could say anything, she made to leap into the air like she had seen Ballerinas do on television. However the water that was still in the bottom of the draining bath caused her to slip, she tumbled forward, and there followed the almighty crack of skull hitting metallic taps, resonated through the room.
