An Independant Study Course

At first Piper had been quite annoyed upon learning that, due to Dylan's spontaneous spell-casting, she and her husband had been relocated to their future bedroom, which was quite a walk from the former one. That is, she was annoyed until she learned what a bargain she was getting by making the switch. Talk about your upgrades! She loved everything about the new room, from the stone shower (complete with trickling waterfall) down to the classily decorated stained glass windows above the long, plush window seat.

Once they'd finally taken in all the features and furnishings of their new living space, the young fertile couple lay wide awake in bed, marveling at both the impressiveness of their new room and the dizzying events of a day that (they thought) was finally coming to a close.

"I promise this is the last time." said Piper. "What are Tristan's powers called again?"

Leo went through the list for the third time that night, enjoying his wife's unusually vibrant curiosity. "They are: Cryokinesis, Pyrokinesis, Terrakinesis, Cholorokinesis, Hydrokinesis, Molecular Biokinesis, and finally... Thermokinesis."

"Well, you better add 'Stained glass-kinesis', 'Kitchen tile-kinesis', and 'Bedroom furniture-kinesis' to that list too." said Piper, basking in the overwhelming comfort of their new bed. "I'll bet you anything that he made this. There's no way this bed came from Fred's Furniture Fair. I swear, I think I heard it breathing a few minutes ago."

Leo saidwith a golden grin, "I promise you, this bed is not alive. Tristan can make living things grow but he can't give life to inanimate objects."

"I don't care what you say," returned Piper, a childlike stubbornness in her eyes. "this mattress is literally hugging me. I feel like I should treat it to dinner or something."

"Well maybe you should." Leo teased. "Who knows, it might send you a 'thank you' card in return. Maybe it could even find another mattress and we can double date sometime."

"That's actually not a bad idea." returned Piper. "So who are you bringing?"

Leo could only chuckle in response.

"Wouldn't be laughin' if I were you." Piper said snidely. "I could easily be seduced into cheating on you with this mattress. It makes Viggo Mortensen look like a last resort."

Leo winked at his wife. "I think I can handle your dating a piece of furniture on the side."

"Okay, but if this mattress and I run off to Vegas, don't say I didn't warn you.

"I won't." Leo said smugly. "You can even say 'I told you so'."

"You know, it's no fun if you're not jealous." Piper teased. "You clearly are not the dead man that I married."

"I'm not? What about you?" Though he teased her, there was still truth in Leo's words. "Where's my worry wart of a wife?"

"I have no idea." Piper sighed blissfully, no interest in explaining any further.

Leo said sincerely, "I can't believe, with everything that's happened today, that you look happier than I've seen you in... I can't even remember."

Piper pondered her husband's words for a moment. "I don't quote Sheryl Crow very often, but 'I'd be the last to help you understand.'

Leo decided to not question the moment, but to enjoy it for as long as they could make it last.

"Lee should bottle and market that juice of his." declared Piper. "...giving all the profits to charity of course."

Leo grabbed the stack of index cards from the top of his nightstand and started thumbing intently through them. "Let's see... juice... juice... juice..." He sounded like an eager little boy, searching for the prize at the bottom of a cereal box. "Here it is! Jolly Juice."

"Wait a minute!" exclaimed Piper. "Are you cheating?"

"No," claimed Leo, playfully defensive. "I'm just getting a head start so I'll know more than you do."

Piper scoffed in response. "Does Dylan even know that you have his cards?" she asked accusingly.

"Actually, he just gave them to me." Leo hautily replied. "He said he was gonna make new ones.

"New ones? What's wrong with these?"

"He didn't say." Leo shrugged carelessly. "Tristan thinks it's because Dylan's pen ran out of ink and he had to switch halfway through. Apparently it's important to him to write them all with the same pen." Though he found Dylan's actions to be unusual, it was no mystery whose DNA inspired them.

"Let me guess;" Piper said snidely. "You blame me for that little quirk."

"I didn't say that." Leo answered innocently. "Of course, I didn't deny it either."

"Watch it, you." snapped Piper, though she sounded far from threatening.

Leo continued to flip through his cards in an earnest attempt to understand the fascinating functions of his future family. Though it was no longer a challenge to remember the boys' names, he still found the Food Phrases a little bit daunting. "I'm never gonna get this." he complained. "Not only are they too specific, there are too many that begin with a shade of blue. Listen to this: Sapphire Salad, Turquoise Tangerines, Robins Egg Raspberries, Cobalt Cucumbers, Periwinkle Parsley..." to which Piper knowingly replied, "Honey, look at Dylan's card next to the words "favorite color", where Leo found, to his dismay, the words "absolutely any shade of blue."

Piper enjoyed watching her husband toil away like a school boy cramming for the next morning's exam, as she herself let her mind wander through the events of the overlong day. "I'm glad that sharp stomach pain finally went away." she said with a small sigh of relief. "It had to be that strange tea Rory made me. It tasted fine going down but that aftertaste was easily the worst thing I have ever tasted, potions and tonics included."

Leo temporarily ceased his incessant studying. "And the pain started up right after that?"

"Not right after," answered Piper, herself a bit unsure. "Maybe fifteen minutes or so."

"I'm just amazed that he was up and walking at all. He must have more Whitelighter abilities than most of the others. Before, he had a broken leg and I found four broken ribs. Not to mention a black eye and swollen lip, among other things." Leo's brow furrowed. "Something about it just seems a little off."

"Is self-healing on the card Dylan made for him?" asked Piper.

Leo only flipped three cards before arriving at Rory's. "It does say accelerated healing, but that still seems a little bit fast to me."

"Well, he was asleep for several hours." added Piper. "Jared also told me he thought that Rory was keeping to his room to keep out of Wyatt's sight."

"Oh no." said Leo with a frown. "I thought they were working everything out."

"Oh, they are." Piper quickly replied. "It's so Wyatt won't feel guilty when he sees Rory hobbling around, though I guess that's not gonna be a problem anymore."

"Speaking of hobbling around," she went on, "I hope I can find my way back up to the kitchen tomorrow morning. I should've taken Dylan up on that offer to draw me a map."

"Of course you will, silly." Leo smiled at his wife's needless worrying. "The house isn't that much bigger."

Piper scoffed in disbelief. "Leo, we are currently sleeping in a bedroom the size of Chicago in what Riley referred to as the South Wing of the Manor."

"So?"

"What d'ya mean, 'So?'" exclaimed Piper. "Since when does this house have any wings at all, South or otherwise?"

"Honey, you're starting to get cranky. I think I know a little girl who needs to get some sleep."

"Well, Mister PTA Mom," Piper retorted, "that'd be a lot easier if a certain cheeky Whitelighter would stop studying his widdle fwash cards and turn off his widdle study wamp."

"Okay, but only if it'll stop your Elmer Fudd impression."

Piper smirked in his direction, pleased that her plan to douse the light had worked.

Leo took one last look at the card he had been reading, The Rules & Regulations of the Halliwell Huddle, and set them all back down on the nightstand. Though he felt an uneasiness about ceasing his studies, especially since he was finally making some progress, he still cut off his lamp and settled into bed next to his wife. He and Piper lay as spoons as they continued their conversation.

"So which one's your favorite?" Leo joked.

"That is not funny!" Piper snapped, slapping her husband on the leg.

"Oh, come on, I'm just kidding."

"I repeat: It's not funny," She paused only for a second. "And I have absolutely no idea."

Leo let the topic fall, knowing that, unless a person is careful, that particular subject can lead to high volume arguments. "Well, what do you think about all of this... stuff."

"Phew!" Piper sighed. "Insert day-long conversation here!"

Leo chuckled silently. "I know what you mean."

"I do know this though;" she added. "I can't think of a single one of them without grinning like a fool." Holding true to her words, she smiled widely. "And to think, when Jared told me this morning how many of them there were, I fainted from the shock, and fell right into the water fountain."

Leo's stomach ached from stifling his laughter. "Are you serious?"

"I was out cold for nearly three hours." Piper even laughed herself, imagining how Jared must've looked as he watched his mother topple into the large fountain. "I wonder what would've come out next if we hadn't stopped at Lee."

"When you put it that way, it makes you sound like a vending machine where you can't choose what flavor you get." Leo chided. "Who knows, maybe you went through all the flavors by the time Lee came around." That sounded so much better in my head, he thought.

"Uh huh." Piper grunted. "I'm officially not speaking to you anymore. "No more bread. The kitchen's closed."

"Well, ya can't stay mad at me forever." said Leo tauntingly. "You've got seven more to pregnancies to go, and you can't exactly achieve that in an independent study course, if ya know what I mean."

"Guess what, Leo." Piper chirped, "I'm already pregnant."

Leo gasped silently. "Pregnant? Really? Already?"

"Yep!" answered Piper. "With twins no less."

Leo stuttered, practically tripping on his own tongue.

"But... Well... I mean..."

"Goodnight, Leo."

"What if you're wrong though?"

"I said, 'Goodnight, Leo'."

"Better safe than sorry if you asked me."

"Go to sleep, Leo."