"Hello my lovely girls," said Grams with a smile on her. "It took you long enough until you contacted me."
"We've just recently got our memories back," said Phoebe. "Lucky for me I was taking a break from riding my bike or I might have seriously hurt myself."
Grams tsked. "Simple spell and that would have been fixed right up," she said. "Anyway, what have you girls been doing?"
"Invited my warlock ex-boyfriend into the house," said Piper.
"Don't worry about it, hun," the woman said. "We've all had our dalliances with the darker side."
"You've protected the house?" said Prue. "How strong is the protection. Would it be able to take on a full assault?"
"No unfortunately," said Grams. "Even with all our power we can't fully protect ourselves from them. The only thing your mother and I could achieve was building protections while she was pregnant with Prue. We made it look as though we were afraid of demons attacking the house, which was a real possibility now that I think about it."
"What about Paige? Should we call her in?"
"I don't know," said Grams. "This was your plan from the beginning, I was only working so the part I could play could come into fruition. Beyond that, it's up to you to decide."
"How well hidden is she?" Piper asked.
"They don't know of her existence," said Grams. "Your mother and I ensured that, we also worked the spell so that only the three of you would have their powers activated. Since she's still, for lack of a better word, mundane, she's unlikely to attract anyone nasty."
"Except if they're looking towards the future," said Phoebe. "Or the past. I was able to find her. It's not too much to think that they might be able to do the same."
"But those were special circumstances," Grams said. "You were looking for trouble along your line. It makes sense that you would find her."
"By that logic someone also looking to destroy us, with an eye for the past, might find her, even accidently," said Prue. "Even if they look too far forward, they might see us in a timeline where we need her help."
"Calling Paige will earn their gaze," said Grams.
"The question becomes, do we care more about our sister or our goals for the future?" said Piper.
"We should call her," said Prue. "Even if it earns their attention we'll deal with it. We're not going to sacrifice family for this."
"Let's start the spell," said Phoebe.
"Wait, before we do," said Prue. "If we're doing this then we can't just put her to sleep like the last time. We'll have to fill her in, see her power, ensure it grows so that even if she doesn't want to join us in the future she'll at least be able to protect herself."
"You think we're going to fail again?" asked Phoebe.
"It would be very egotistical for us to think otherwise," said Prue. "It makes more sense if we think of this as a trial run for the greater act, trying out different strategies, all of it culminating in the final timeline."
"But that would mean we would be pushing all the other timelines under the bus," said Phoebe, sounding aghast.
"Do we have a choice?" Prue said and thinking on it Piper found that she agreed on it. They were facing a force that even the Source of All Evil was having trouble taking down if she was right on her thoughts.
"Prue's right," said Piper. "Right now the Angels are causing wide spread genocide on a whim. If we win this, even if it's further ahead with many iterations as possible, we'll still be creating an infinite timelines. Giving all of them a sense of free will."
"That's to play then," said Phoebe. "We're aiming for the greatest accumulation of knowledge, of power." She let out a breath. "Which means I'll have to keep sending information back to Grams."
"Wait," said Prue. "If you're doing that, then shouldn't that immediately translate to now? Getting new knowledge because you've sent it back?"
"Not with how our grade of time travel works," said Piper. "We're creating new timelines with everything we send back. In a sense we're still living on, but if we die now, then the here us is really dead."
"I'm finding I'm starting to hate quasi-time travel," Phoebe muttered. "Let's get this started. We have at most forty five minutes before Jeremy unfreezes and I have the feeling we'll spend a majority of the time explaining."
The three of them nodded and they began, and as Phoebe predicted it took a lot of explaining before Paige finally accepted the truth.
"So you're my sisters?" said Paige said as she paced in the attic. Piper was struck by the girl, she was on the tall side with dark hair and a very familiar cast to her features: When she looked at her eyes should could see Prue's stubbornness, the contours of the face belonged to Grams and her impatience was definitely Phoebe's.
There were the oddities too. She was a little tall, a little too thin with a gangly gait to her. Piper didn't notice that she'd been smiling in all the time that she was staring at Paige, feeling a swell of emotions and holding back the intense impulse to wrap the girl in a hug.
"…scared," Prue finished, an explanation Piper had entirely missed.
"Then why did you bring me here?" said Paige. "If it was dangerous that I was even born?" There was a hitch to her voice, though the girl tried to hide it.
"Because for one thing you're our sister," said Phoebe. "And nothing, not even the Elders, can keep us away from you."
Not a direct answer to the question, Piper felt, but from the small shifts of the girl's expression Piper had the image that Phoebe must have looked at the future for the answer. It was getting eerie how much control Phoebe was getting over her ability, it was even getting to the point where her expression didn't even seem far off when she was in the middle of her visions.
More than anything, though, it was the fact that she could use them to manoeuvre social interactions. It was the worst sort of manipulation, but right now it was being used to cut down this conversation and send them moving forward.
"So I apparently have powers and sisters and my life is in danger," she said.
"Not really," said Prue. "I don't think the Elders know just yet."
"And even if they do what can they do?" asked Phoebe. "If they attack our sister then they're jading our image of them, they increase the chance of us turning into warlocks."
Paige sighed. "You guys look like you have a lot on your hands and I'm not liking the general thread," she said. "It was really nice meeting all of you and I want to meet you again, but I think I need time to deal."
"You can't leave," said Prue.
Paige's expression shifted.
"No," said Phoebe. "She can. Her powers aren't activated yet. We pulled her out when she was alone and we can send her back. No one should be watching her so no one will have noticed she was gone."
"Right," said Paige. "Send me back, please."
"We'll have to restructure the spell," said Piper and she realised that she was speaking for the first time. "It shouldn't take too long."
888
"This is starting to bore me," said Jeremy. "Being frozen all the time. You might as well smite me. I might have more fun as a demon."
"Don't tempt me," said Piper, shooting a scowl at the man who'd just unfrozen. The sister had shared a few moment's speech after Paige had been returned home and they'd reached a something of a plan. For this iteration of their travels, they'd do as the Elders wanted while gathering as much information as they could.
"We've found what you're going to do," said Prue. "More than anything we need information."
"Information?" said Jeremy, a frown appearing. "You're the Charmed One, you come from a long family line. Anything you need to know you can just get from that book…it's real, right? The Book of Shadows?"
"The book's limited," said Phoebe. "If gives us names of demons and other creatures that have been faced in the past, but it doesn't give anything on the smarter players out there."
"Which is where you come in," said Prue. "We want you to establish power in the Underworld."
Jeremy let out a long chuckled, a moment passing before he stopped, looking at the sisters with bulging eyes.
"Please tell me you're kidding me," he said. "I'm just a warlock. I haven't even figured out how to blink and you want me in the Underworld? Facing demons? You're all crazy."
"But you'll have our backing," said Piper. "If we play this right, play it smart, then any competitors in your way might find that they're vanquished by the Charmed Ones."
"That doesn't seem like it would work," said Jeremy.
"It will," said Phoebe. "And even if it doesn't we'll scrap this timeline and go back, to where you're alive. Place this right and you'll have our immortality too."
Jeremy was grinning now. "You really are from the future," he said.
"In a manner of speaking," said Phoebe. Piper wanted to have doubts but who knew when Phoebe was looking as she spoke to all of them. "It's up to you if you want to join our quasi-immortal group."
"I do," he said. "Fuck me this is exciting just thinking about it. But," he said. "How does this tie into Piper's orders? I'm not supposed to kill anyone."
"Any witches," Piper corrected. "I don't mind you doing anything to warlocks. Matter of fact we already have a target for you. Someone who'll make the process a little easier for you, and you won't need to kill."
Jeremy was still grinning. "When do we start?" he said.
"In about two months," said Phoebe. "But right now you have to lay low. You have to fight your way out of here and make it look convincing. If you're really working with us then the house won't attack you. But I should warn you, Jeremy, of the futures where you've tried to betray us, we've succeeded in not just vanquishing you, but destroying you completely."
A silence hung in the air, palpable enough that it sent shivers running up Piper's spine. The same, she saw, could be said for Jeremy because the warlock looked visibly pale.
"I'll take that as a warning," Jeremy said, having to clear his throat to get the entire statement through. "I'm going to attack you now."
"Make it good," said Phoebe a millisecond before tables started flying in their direction.
Play this seriously, Piper reminded herself even as she waved a hand making two objects explode, sending splinters flying; in the same moment Prue pushed out both her hands, shoving Jeremy back while Phoebe was running back, heading upstairs.
Piper flicked her hands as Jeremy jumped, lunging for the window. The man stopped, frozen for a second, before he continued forward, crashing through the window. The protections had been broken and if the Elders were watching no doubt they'd see that something was wrong.
Prue's hands outstretched before she grabbed and pulled. Jeremy didn't hit the ground, instead he was pulled back into the house before Piper hit him with and explosion. The two forces added together into something that sent the man flying sideways. He landed and flicked out a hand, sending everything towards them.
Piper tried to freeze but there was too much furniture, only catching three before she was pushed to the side by Prue. Looking in the direction Piper could see Prue almost flying away in the opposite direction.
When she'd found her feet and ran outside, Piper could see Jeremy had already ran and instead there was a concerned looking Leo standing at the edge of the property.
Piper reacted as was needed for someone in her position, who'd just been attacked by a warlock in her own home and started attacking the whitelighter only for the man to disappear in his signature blue light matter, not exactly going away, but moving a few feet to his left.
"Don't attack," he said, hands held in surrender. "I'm a good guy. Your whitelighter."
"You're Leo," said Prue. "The come in and the more prudent question—" a snort came from inside the house, Piper looked and it was Phoebe. "—is what took you so long if you're supposed to be our protector."
"The wards around the house," said Leo. "I can't hear you. You didn't vanquish him the first opportunity you had," he said. "Why?"
"Information gathering," said Prue. "Grams gave us the basics in her time, but the world's changed since we were kids. We thought he might know."
"Hubris on our part," said Phoebe. "He tricked us." She took a few steps down, walking closer to Leo and extending a hand, it was eerie how different this was to the Phoebe that had been in the house and more like the Phoebe before this entire magic thing happened.
"Phoebe Halliwell," she said, taking Leo's hand. "Grams told us that we had a whitelighter, but she didn't mention anything on how hot he was."
Leo blushed at that.
"Really, Phoebe," said Prue, exasperation in his voice. "You're flirting now. Let's get inside, he might be hiding and just waiting to attack us."
The sisters nodded between each other before they entered the house.
"You too," said Prue to Leo. "We're hoping you can tell us about the present atmosphere between good and evil."