A Charmed Story - Part Five:
20 Weddings And A Funeral?
Chapter 4

When Phoebe and Leo orbed back home, Paige and Darryl where already there. They sat on the sofa in the living room, next to the girl.
"Where is Piper?" Leo asked.
"Kitchen," Paige answered shortly. She looked really tiered.
"Oh, you're back," remarked Piper when she entered the room with a sandwich for the girl. Jessica took it and ate it quickly... she seemed to be very hungry.
"Did you found something out?" Piper asked after she had sat down, too.
"Not really," Darryl said, "it's always the same story. The couple is about to change the rings and then, from on second to another, they are gone."
Leo nodded: "Yeah, we heard the same story, but Phoebe had a vision."
"Really?" Piper asked. "What have you seen?"
"It was a weird mix of pictures. A carousel with monsters, the couple itself, a clown..."
"A clown?" Paige asked surprised, while Darryl seemed to be completely confused by her words.
"Yeah," Phoebe nodded, "why?"
"Well..." Paige answered, "a friend of one of the missed bride grooms told us, that they were on a festival a few days before the marriage. There was an old carousel and there was a clown, who seemed to work there. Later the bride groom had dreamed about the clown and he told the man that he will never marry."
"That's interesting," Piper muttered.
"It seems we have a first trace," Leo remarked.
Piper rose again: "I'll go up to the attic and have a look on the book."
"And I'll go and ask the Elders," Leo add.
"Orb me to the school, before, I'll check the books in the library," Phoebe said. He nodded.
"Maybe you should take Wyatt with you, too... he's safer at the kindergarten," Paige added remembering the mysterious shadow they had seen. Now it was Piper who nodded.
But before anyone could leave some bluish lights appeared when Bianca orbed in.
It took less then a second for the others to realize that there was something wrong. Bianca looked terrible. She was very pale and her face was covered with tears. "Chris," she muttered weakly, then she broke down.
Jessica stopped eating all of a sudden, looking at Bianca paler and paler every second.
Piper and Leo had rushed to the woman, and helped her to take a seat, and then Leo applied his healing palms on Bianca's forehead. But she was fine, she was only scared and dismayed... and pregnant, of course.
Phoebe approached her and sat down on the floor, in front of her knees. "What happened, Bianca?" she asked, feeling her distress and worries.
"He... the clown.. the clown took him... it was my fault..." she sobbed.
Jessica startled, even more than the rest who were all shocked.
"The what?" Paige asked, opening her eys widely.
"The clown..." Phoebe repeated, in a murmur.
Bianca nodded: "There was this carousel in the park... I had never seen it before. I heard that music and insisted to go and check it, because it seemed familiar. Chris didn't want to go... But I insisted..." The girl's feeling of guilt was so big, she couldn't stop sobbing.
Piper looked in Leo's worried eyes, but the man just stroke Bianca's hair: "It's not your fault, ok? Maybe, even if this is weird, this can help us... "
"What?" Paige and Phoebe exclaimed at the same time. "Chris's being kidnapped by that crazy clown doesn't help, I think..."
Leo shook his head: "The last trace we had was of 20 years ago or so. Now we know where the carousel has been seen for the last time. And they have Chris, he's a witch and an Elder. I bet this clown or whatever didn't count on having someone as powerful as him with them." Piper nodded slowly, while Jessica kept pale and silent staring at them. Staring at Bianca, her savior...
Darryl, who had been also quiet behind them, just listening, finally coughed to attract their attention: "Maybe I can help... ?"
Leo shook his head: "I'll go and talk to the Elders as I said. Piper, go to check the book, and Phoebe, I'll take you and Wyatt to the school. Darryl... Thanks, but I guess this is again more a magical case. Just, please, try to gather all the information of those couples and establish comparisons and similarities. We need some common point among them all, ok? Apart from the date..."
"And with Chris..." muttered Jessica after her long silent.
Bianca was shivering as she looked at her: "What do we have in common with all of them? Not even the date..." she said.
Phoebe nodded: "But you're just married too..."
Then Jessica shook her head again: "That's the difference. They are married. We didn't..." She was paler than before.
Paige sighed, then she got an idea: "Hey... Maybe they didn't make any mistake, and knew well who Chris is... Perhaps they wanted him after all."
Bianca frowned: "They wanted us both... Little Hope orbed me home. She protected me, but she wasn't able to protect her dad. He was like... hypnotized."
"The music?" Paige asked, questioningly.
Bianca shrugged: "Perhaps. But it didn't get to me..."
There was a silence for a minute. Then Piper clapped her hands: "Ok, there's no time to lose, Chris is in danger! So... Leo, do as you said, Darryl, please, go and check those coincidences out, ok? And I'll go to the book. We're gonna find out what the hell is going on."
"Don't forget the shadow over Jessica..." Paige said as she saw them disappearing and Darryl going out.
Suddenly she had an idea. "Hey! Piper! Wait..." Bianca and Piper looked at her, confused, but Paige went on: "Jessica, everyone said that you just vanished, like that... all the couples. But Bianca... you saw Chris disappear, how was it?"
Bianca was pensive, even if she wasn't able to stop shivering:
"The clown... he kept him from his neck, and then, pushed his hand harshly like... like into his chest and finally made him disappear in a greenish light..."
Jessica startled: "Now you mention that... I felt a very sharp pain in my chest too. I cried and..." She stopped. She thought she had just seen that clown there. But the memory had been like a flash, and she couldn't keep it in mind.
"That might be because Chris is more powerful, as well, as Bianca, and he had to use other powers..." Piper suggested, frowning.
Paige shook her head: "Piper... freeze Jessica."
Piper looked at her shocked: "WHATTTTTTTT?"
Paige insisted: "Just do it, Piper!"
Her sister did it before Jessica could even ask. Then, Paige went to the back of Bianca's seat, and ducked, so that Jessica wouldn't see her.
"Now, unfreeze her again..." she told Piper.
The woman did it and Jessica was unfroze. When she looked at them, she was more scared than ever.
"She vanished!" she exclaimed. "He's coming, he's coming after me!"
Bianca opened her mouth widely, understanding, as Paige stood up again with a triumphant smiled drawn on her face.
"And... That's what happened!" she said.
Jessica frowned, trembling, so Piper went to her, and took her hand.
"Don't worry, that was white magic. I was trying something." Then she turned to her sister, angrily: "Something I hope she can explain to us NOW!"
Paige grinned: "Hey girls... It's easy... The guests of the weddings... were frozen! Just like Jessica right now... That's why they got that impression, that they had simply vanished!"
"Oh, MY GOD!" Piper exclaimed. Bianca was shocked, and Jessica confused. "So you think... this time it's not a demon that we are facing... It's a witch!" Paige nodded, smiling happily.
Piper stood up, and walked to the stairs: "I'll check the book anyway..."

°°°°°°°°°°

When Chris rematerialized, he just fell down on the ground, as if he had been pushed to it. He raised his eyes a bit weakly because of the harsh pain on his body, and saw it... the carousel.
But when he turned around he realised that the only colourful thing there was the carousel itself. The rest, was a world of black and white, or greys. It was a weird world.
A huge boot stepped right below his chin, so he had to look up and face the clown.
"What is this?" he asked.
"This is another plane... A parallel plane, boy. MY world of fantasies..." And then he started to laugh in a very weird and distressing way, as he grabbed Chris by his shoulder and pushed him on his feet.
"What do you want from me?" Chris asked trying to sound confident.
The clown smiled: "Revenge!" Then he turned around and was about to leave.
Chris didn't understand all that. "Revenge? For what?" he yelled.
The clown turned around, still smiling he was approaching him again. "You have stolen one of my holograms, one of my best," he whispered. He was so close to Chris now, that he could smell his rotten breath. It made him feel sick.
"But I didn't steal her... I..." he yelled when the clown was about to edge away from him again.
Again he turned around, but this time he kept the distance: "No... not you, your girl did it... and by the way she was the one I wanted in first place... But I think you're enough to re-complete my collection. You are even more than that..."
'Bianca,' Chris thought.
"But maybe..." the clown went on, "I'll go and take her a little later...to see what I'm going to do with you..."
"NO!" Chris yelled furious and attacked that evil bastard. He wanted to threw him away with his telekinesis, but it didn't work. So he tried to beat him with his fists, but... he fell just trough him. The power of his own stroke made him fall to the ground again.
The clown just smiled: "You can't beat me... your powers don't work here. But..." He moved his hand and made Chris flew though the air and crashing against the inner circle of the carousel. Then the clown went over to him to look into his eyes: "...be sure... I can let you go though a lot more pain than that!" He smiled evilly.
"They will find me, my family will find me and they will vanquish you..." Chris replied with a lot of anger in his voice.
But the clown just laughed. "Stay here, till I decide what I'll do with you," he said and disappeared.
Chris sighed. He couldn't believe that his powers were not working. He closed his eyes and tried to orb, but he couldn't.
He shook his head. Then he thought about Bianca and that made him cry a little. He wanted to wipe away his tears, but when he rose his hand he suddenly understood. He understood, why he wasn't able to use his powers.
His hand was transparent. And not only his hand... Every part of his body was transparent including his clothes. 'I'm a hologram' he thought, 'I'm not real... so my powers aren't real, either.'

°°°°°°°°°°

Cole and Victor were still sitting on the sofa, they had a large book with pictures on their knees. Pictures form the sisters childhood.
"Oh that's cute," Cole said and pointed at a picture of Phoebe at the age of three with a big dish of ice-cream in her hand and a lot more spread around her face.
Victor laughed and nodded.
Cole really enjoyed watching all those pictures. More and more he felt like a part of that family, and that was a good feeling. His whole life he was trying to get away from all that family business, especially because of his own demonic mother... He was kind of afraid of that thing. But now... now he had learned that being part of a family is one of the most important things in life. Especially when you have such a good one, like the Halliwells.
"It's sad that I have less pictures from the sisters when they were older," Victor mentioned while they went on.
Cole nodded: "I really don't understand why Penny... well... why she don't like you."
Victor laughed: "That's easy... I'm not a witch."
Cole nodded: "Yeah, I'll never forget her face when I told her that I'm human... I think that was more difficult for her to accept than if I had been still a demon."
Victor laughed about his imagination of that picture.
Then Cole noticed another picture of Phoebe. He pointed and it and asked: "Was that at Halloween?"
Victor smiled: "No... when she was a teenager she was usually dressed like that?"
"You're kidding," Cole said and looked at the picture again. Phoebe was looking like a mixture between punk and rowdy.
"No... she was really crazy... a little rebel."
Cole looked still at the picture unbelieving. Then he suddenly remembered his talk with adult Wyatt. 'She is just like her mother was at that age,' he had said about his first daughter.
'Oh no!' he thought and sighed. But then he smiled. He would surly have a lot of fun with his own kids.
Victor was wondering what his friend was thinking about, but when he saw his smile, he knew it must be something good.
But then he noticed that Cole's expression changed. "What's wrong?" he asked.
Cole kept silent for a moment. Then he turned to his friend: "I don't know... just a feeling."
Victor frowned: "Intuition?" Cole nodded. "Like a few minutes ago?"
Cole nodded again: "It's like... I think there is something going on at home... But... I can't catch it." Then he asked: "Would you mind when I call for Leo to take me home? I can't sit here any longer if I'm not sure that everything is alright.
Victor nodded: "No problem... maybe I should..."
But Cole rose his hands: "No... you're not so used to that magical stuff... and IF there is something going on, you'll be safer here." Victor nodded and Cole called for the Elder.

°°°°°°°°°°

Jessica was sitting on the old sofa in the attic, observing the others. Piper was concentrated on the book, while Paige had closed her eyes. She was trying to sense Chris. Bianca was half lying on the floor, she was touching her womb and whispering something.
Jessica felt a little like being at the wrong place. She wished she could help in a way. But she didn't know how.
Suddenly Piper rose her head. "Bianca you said the clown wanted you, too?"
The girl nodded. Piper sighed.
"What the...?" Paige exclaimed. She couldn't concentrate as long as the others were talking.
"I still don't understand why he took Chris. That fits not to the rest!" Piper explained her thoughts.
"But I've seen it," Bianca muttered and sobbed again a little.
"I know honey," Piper said and went over to her, tying to comfort her.
"Maybe he just wanted a kind of compensation?" Paige suggested.
Jessica looked up: "Compensation?"
"Yeah, they freed you, so he wanted someone new."
"But he was after me, too." Bianca remarked.
"Maybe," Piper said, "or he was just attracted by your forcefield. Maybe he didn't reckon with something like that."
Paige nodded: "Maybe he still don't know who he had caught."
Piper rose her eyebrow: "That would be surly safer for him."

°°°°°°°°°°

Cole was pacing around. Also Victor became a little uneasy now.
"LEO!" the ex-demon yelled for the tenth time. "I don't understand why he don't come..." he muttered.
"Maybe he is with the other Elders?" Victor suggested.
Cole shook his head: "Even there he must hear me calling."
Victor frowned "That's weird."
Cole nodded: "Actually I have a real bad feeling about this. There is something wrong, I'm sure."
"Maybe you should call for Chris," Victor suggested.
Cole shook his head: "He's on his honeymoon... I wouldn't disturb him even if the world would be braking into pieces."
Victor nodded : "Ok, so we take my car, I'll drive you there... it needs only..."
"No," Cole said with a smile, "thanks for your offer, but that takes too much time.
Victor sighed: "And what will you do now?"
Cole thought about that for a moment. The he asked: "Can I use your phone?" As Victor nodded, he went over and dialed a number.
"Tom? Yeah, here's Cole... Yeah, boy, I need a taxi... Could you come to Victors apartment?... The adress is..." Victor heard him talk, "Yeah I just want to go home, but I can't reach Leo as it seems..."
Before Cole had ended the call, Tom shimmered in.
"Hey Mr. Ban... Sorry... Victor," he said with a smile.
"Hello Tom," Victor answered still sitting on the sofa. 'That was a good idea, the perfect taxi,' he thought while watching him. Then he turned to Cole: "You call me, when you know what's going on?"
"Of course I will," Cole answered and took Tom's hand.
"Ready?" they young man asked. Cole nodded and they shimmered away.

°°°°°°°°°°

That day wasn't a holiday at all, so the school was full of kids and teenagers going from one place to another. Actually, the library itself was 'overcrowded', if we take into account the small number of people that it usually has.
Phoebe took Wyatt to the kindergarten, and then she went to the library, to check the books, as she had said. She wasn't sure what she had to look for... Clowns? Holograms? Ok, they had tried with holograms first. Maybe it was worthwhile to try clowns this time...
But it was hard for her to focus on her task, with all the kids speaking (and some of them were really afraid of some exams, as Phoebe could feel...), and with the fear that Chris was in some problem, harder than they figured out...
'Oh, hell,' she thought, 'no one here knows that libraries are places for silence to reign?'
Clowns... She had to find something about that, and the carousel... but the only thing she got was a couple of novels.

°°°°°°°°°°

Meanwhile, in the attic, Bianca, Jessica and Paige looked at Piper after her last words. She was right... Maybe the best thing for Chris was to keep his powers as a secret... Suddenly, the air waved in a strange way, and Tom and Cole materialized in the middle of the attic.
"Cole! I thought you were with dad..." Piper exclaimed, visibly worried. "Is everything ok?" Tom didn't move, he just looked at Cole and then to Piper, expectantly.
"No, no... He's fine, and me too... I just..." he frowned and cast a glance around him. When the girls were in the attic, something WAS wrong. "Where's Leo?" he asked. Then he frowned even more, at the sight of Bianca, and his heart started to beat strongly: "Where's Chris? What's happening here?"
"Cole, sit down, man... This is a long story," Paige said, leading him to the sofa by Jessica's side, who smiled at him, softly.
Bianca let go a sob as she heard Chris's name, but tried to hide her distress and tears from Cole, because she knew how bad that man felt whenever something happened to his nephew.
"This is Jessica... Jessica, this is Cole. He's Phoebe's... well, he's..." she coughed.
"Ok, I get it..." Jessica smiled more widely now, as Cole blushed.
"Well, we're in process of discovering what we are, actually..." 'Ex-husband, boyfriend, fiancé... whatever,' he thought. "But who are you? And where's Phoebe?" he was alarmed.
"Phoebe is fine, Cole, she's at the library in the school. Leo is talking to the Elders, and Chris is... well, he was caught."
"What?" Tom and Cole exclaimed at the same time. The ex-demon stood up immediately: "But how?"
Tom approached them. "If you need some help I can go and bring Steve and Nicki..." he offered.
"No, it's ok, sweetie..." Piper said tiredly.
"I'll stay, anyway," Tom added, determined not to move.
Meanwhile, Jessica and Bianca had started to sob again. "It's my fault..." Jessica said. "He was caught probably because I was released..."
"But who did this, is Chris in danger?" Cole asked.
"A clown," Paige answered.
"A what?"
Tom smirked: "Ok... I get it... this is the fool's day, and you're kiddin'." All the heads turned to Tom in anger, so he just blushed, lowered his eyes, and shut up.
Cole had grown paler: "A clown... what clown?" The others shrugged.
"That's what Leo and Phoebe are trying to find out. This book is really getting out of fashion..." Piper closed it with a strong thud. There was nothing!
"Ok..." Cole said, "can anyone explain everything to me? Because otherwise, I'll start to think as Tom did..."
Piper sighed, and nodded: "Ok... This all began when Chris and Bianca interrupted their honey moon in Disney World..."

°°°°°°°°°°

Chris stood up and stumbled out of the carousel. He was afraid, man... He hated his new aspect, and he didn't really want to spend the rest of his life inside the Haunted Mansion or any other ride with holograms, making people have fun.
He looked around... There was no one else there... He thought that maybe he could take some advantage of his state, and find something out about the mysterious girl they had rescued. What if he went to the haunted mansion? But the only thought made him thrill.
He stepped forward, shivering a little bit, and all of a sudden, a hand held his arm.
"Don't go there. Stay here... You'll only get hurt. Only the ones he wants to go out are allowed to leave this place. We have to wait."
Chris turned quickly to face the voice's owner, and frowned. "Who are you?" he asked confused.
"I'm Michael... Michael Wellington..."

(Chapter 4 written by Chrissy.W.x and Belén)