Disclaimer: If I had one wish, well I'd wish for a billion dollars, but then I'd use the money to buy Charmed. And an Aston Martin, but that's beside the point.

Ch. 9:

The waiter stood in front of the table with a bottle of wine. Unfortunately, Phoebe and Jason didn't notice, being too involved with each other to notice anything. After a moment, they finally broke apart when he cleared his throat.

"Pardon me." He said.

"Hi!" Phoebe said, embarrassed. "Sorry. I didn't see you there."

"Oh, no, no, please, never apologize for a kiss, signora." The man told her. "Especially for one like that." He held out the bottle for them to see. "'95 brunello di montalcino."

"Great." Jason said, chuckling. "Decant it, please?"

"Of course." The man replied.

"Oh, wow." Phoebe said as the man walked away. "Was that embarrassing."

"You heard what the man said." Jason told her. "Never apologize."

"I'm so happy for you." Phoebe told him.

"I still can't believe it." He replied. "Phoebe, I've wanted to buy my granddad's winery ever since he lost it. I just hope he knows that somehow."

"Believe me, he does." Phoebe told him seriously.

"You talk as if you have inside information." He said.

"Well, maybe I do." Phoebe said, smiling softly.

"You are special, Phoebe." Jason told her.

Phoebe reached out and touched his cheek and felt her power rushed over.

"I love you, too." She told him.

As soon as the words left her mouth, Phoebe froze and Jason stared at her.

"I'm sorry?" he asked.

Phoebe quickly pulled back.

"Who said that?" she asked.

""Did you say, 'too'?" Jason asked.

"No." Phoebe said, laughing nervously. "I just said 'you' twice. I said 'I love you, you'. Isn't that…What I said? Oh, god." She turned and knocked over a glass of water. "Ooh!"

"Daniel, Table 3." The Head Waiter called.

A waiter came over to clean up the mess and behind a nearby curtain, Paige orbed in.

"Ah!" Phoebe said nervously. "It's so-"

"That's okay." The waiter told her. "I'll take care of it."

"Oh, thanks." Phoebe told him. "Thanks. It's weird-"

"Hi!" Paige interrupted.

"Paige!" Phoebe said, relief ringing in her voice.

"I'm so sorry interrupt," Paige told them, "but Piper's kind of got a bit of a, um…a power problem. She kinda needs some more."

"Why doesn't she just call the power company?" Jason asked.

"Tried, and…the line is busy." Paige told him. "Right now, Meredith's with her, but she would really love it if we could come, like, right now."

"Oh!" Phoebe said, reacting to the l-word. "Oh, please don't use that word. Please don't use that word."

Phoebe quickly got to her feet, wincing.

"Okay." She said. "All right. So, I should go, and we will, you know-"

"Talk." Jason finished.

"Talk!" she agreed, backing away. "Yeah!"

She continued to back up until she ran into a waiter carrying a tray of food, which he dropped. Jason promptly covered his face with his hand.

"Oh!" Phoebe said, finally turning around. "Oh, I'm sorry! I'm sorry. Sorry! Okay…"

"Okay." Paige said, quickly leading Phoebe out before she could do something else.

"Ooh!" Phoebe said, looking at the spilled food. "The stuffed shells. Great choice. Okay." She waved. "Bye, everyone."

They quickly walked out, leaving Jason alone.

Piper and Meredith stood in an alleyway, watching a demon get ripped apart from behind a corner. Piper cringed at the screams, while Meredith looked at the demon in interest.

"I think I vanquished him." She said.

Piper stared at her.

"In the future." Meredith elaborated. "I think he was one of my husband's minions that annoyed me. Just how much has Chris changed?"

"You're changing things, too, now." Piper pointed out.

"Yeah, but he did it first." Meredith said. "That makes it his fault. And that's what I'm sticking to."

Paige and Phoebe orbed in behind them.

"Okay, let's vanquish this demon." Paige said loudly.

"Shh!" Piper and Meredith said at the same moment.

"What?" Phoebe whispered.

"Something beat us to the punch." Piper told her.

"Chris is going to be disappointed." Meredith added.

Paige and Phoebe walked forward and watched as a creature crouched above the demon, ripping flesh off with its teeth.

"Eew." Phoebe said. "What is it doing?"

"Apparently eating the demon." Piper said.

As they watched, the creature stuck its hand into the demon's chest and took something out and put it in a pouch.

"Or storing it." Paige said.

"Okay, I'm officially grossed out." Meredith complained.

The demon turned to dust and disappeared and the creature stood up.

"What is it?" Phoebe asked.

"I don't know." Piper said. "And I don't wanna find out. Let's get outta here."

Piper and Meredith stood up and Meredith knocked over a pipe making the creature look right at them.

"Oops." She said, wincing.

The creature hissed and flicked a forked tongue in their direction. Then it sped towards them, knocking them off their feet.

Paige and Phoebe flew backward into the far wall and fell to the ground. Meredith and Piper remained where they were, and Piper blasted the creature.

It had no affect and Piper and Meredith yelped in surprise. Piper continued to blast it as they backed up.

"Paige, do something!" Phoebe yelled.

Before Paige could do anything, Meredith took a deep breath and a bolt of electricity flew from her hand and hit the creature in the chest. She kept the current going until the creature burst into fire and disappeared.

Phoebe and Paige got to their feet as Meredith staggered and fell to her knees.

"Meredith." Piper said, dropping next to the young woman as Phoebe and Paige ran to them.

"I'm alright." Meredith told her. "I'm just not very good at one on one. I'm more the person you call when you need a horde taken out. Hordes I can do. Hordes are easy."

Piper chuckled and she and her sisters help Meredith up. Then they were distracted by a noise coming from a sack the creature had left behind.

The four cautiously approached it and Piper kneeled down and pulled the cloth back to reveal a baby. As they looked at it, the baby smiled and cooed before flicking a forked tongue at them. Piper flinched away, Phoebe's eyes widened, and Paige and Meredith stared at the baby.

"Cute." Paige said.

"Oh, Chris is going to kill me." Meredith moaned.

Paige and Phoebe stood looking down at the baby in the playpen.

"I still can't believe we vanquished his mommy." Phoebe said.

"Yeah, but we didn't know it was a mommy," Paige protested, "and besides, mommy tried to kill us."

"I know." Phoebe said. "Still, look at how cute he is. So adorable. Oh, except when he does that weird little thing with his tongue."

"I wonder why he looks so human." Paige asked.

"I don't know." Phoebe replied. "But he won't for long."

Piper came down the stairs and joined them, holding a baby monitor in her hand.

"Okay, Wyatt's upstairs, so at least he's…" she started, but then Wyatt orbed into the playpen, "…safe."

"I didn't even need future knowledge to know that was going to happen." Meredith called from where she was laying on the couch, her eyes closed.

"Don't worry about Wyatt." Phoebe said. "He's got his protective bubble. He'll use it if he needs it."

"Plus, it looks like he likes his new friend." Paige said.

"That is not a friend." Piper protested. "That's a demon."

"No, he's just a baby!" Paige disagreed.

"'Scuse me." Piper said. "Were you at the same vanquish as me? Because it took all four of us to stop it's mother."

"Excuse me?" Meredith called, cracking her eye open.

"We helped." Phoebe told her.

"My migraine says I destroyed the damn thing." Meredith groused.

"Whatever." Paige interrupted. "It doesn't mean he's gonna turn out that way."

"Paige, he doesn't have a choice." Phoebe told her. "It's genetic."

"No, I don't think so." Paige protested. "Okay, maybe I'm a little biased because I am, in fact, adopted, but I really think there's something to the whole nurture versus nature thing and predicting how a kid is gonna turn out, you know, the classic environment versus biology argument."

"But this is not a child." Piper told her. "It's a demon."

"Okay." Paige said. "Why don't you go over there and see if you can sense anything evil."

Phoebe glanced at the playpen.

"All right." She said, walking over to a seat near the baby and sitting down.

She tried to get a read and finally shrugged.

"Nothing…" she said. "Good or evil."

"My point exactly!" Paige said. "Clay to be molded."

"Yeah, I don't know about that." Piper said.

"Still, the question remains, what are we supposed to do with him?" Phoebe asked.

Chris chose this moment to orb in, his back to the playpen.

"So, you vanquished the demon?" he asked.

"Yes…and no." Piper replied.

Chris raised his eyebrow at her answer.

"Well, the good news is the demon you sent us after is, in fact, uh…gone." Paige told him.

"And the bad news is, whatever ate it…left us that." Phoebe added.

She pointed to the playpen and Chris turned to see the baby, who flicked it's tongue at him.

"I think he likes you." Paige said.

"I don't care." Chris replied. "Vanquish it."

"Chris!" Meredith rebuked, sitting up.

"And you." He said, rounding on her. "How could you let them bring it back here?"

"Because it's a baby!" Meredith replied angrily. "I'm not vanquishing a child!"

"This could be it." He told her. "This could be what gets to Wyatt."

"It's a baby!" Meredith shot back.

"Don't be ridiculous." Paige told him.

"What?" Chris demanded. "I'm being ridiculous? There's a demon in the playpen."

Meredith glared at him and went and picked the baby up, rocking him gently.

"Oh, great." Chris said sarcastically. "Now we're cuddling it."

"You know what, Chris?" Meredith said. "Why don't you go f-"

The phone rang, interrupting what Meredith was going to say, so she and Chris just glared at each other.

"I'll get it." Paige said, walking between them.

"Hey, if it's Jason, tell him I'm in the shower." Phoebe called after her.

"Are you avoiding him?" Piper asked as she sat down across from her.

"Uh…kind of." Phoebe replied. "I, um…sort of told him that I loved him last night."

"Oh." Piper replied. "And this is bad?"

"No." Phoebe answered. "Except I said, 'I love you, too', as if he said, 'I love you' first, which he didn't."

"So, wait…" Meredith said, setting the baby back down. "You told him that he loves you before he told you that he loves you?"

"Mm-hmm." Phoebe replied. "Mm-hmm."

"Yeah, that's not good." Piper replied.

"Yeah." Phoebe agreed. "I'll be lucky if he doesn't move to Hong Kong permanently now. I really thought I had my empath power under control.

"Forget that." Chris said. "What are you gonna do?"

"What am I supposed to do?" Phoebe replied. "I mean, you tell a guy that you love them, and they bolt. It's just what they do."

"He wasn't talking about Jason." Meredith sighed. "Killjoy was talking about the baby."

"Of course I was talking about the baby!" Chris said. "We gotta do something."

The baby cooed and they all looked at it. They watched as he flicked his tongue out and reached across the playpen to pick up a pacifier with it, before bringing it back to his mouth.

"Fast." Chris added.

A/N: So Little Monsters has begun. Who thinks Chris and Meredith are going to scream at each other during this episode at sometime? Me too. Let me know what you think.

Abbey