“EEYYEE!!!
ARRGGHH!! EEYYEE!!"
"Phoebe, what is it?" Stuart called as he came running into the living room.
"ARRGGHH!!!" Phoebe screamed again.
Prue and Piper came running down the stairs. "Where's
the demon?" Piper shouted.
"It's...not a demon," Phoebe said, as she sat up
on the sofa, trying to catch her
breath.
"You had a premonition?" Prue asked.
"A premonition," Phoebe repeated. "Maybe. I
mean...I was sleeping...I think. I can't have a premonition while I'm sleeping,
can I?...No...so it must have been a dream. A dream isn't a premonition,
right? A dream is not my power...so a
dream doesn't mean anything-"
"Phoebe - calm down," Prue said, taking her hand.
"What did you see?"
"I saw...myself lying on the floor...dead. And...Piper
was lying dead next to me."
"Where was this?" Prue asked.
"It was...in the living room."
"Did you see how you died?" Piper asked.
"No," Phoebe said. "There wasn't any blood,
no knife...I don't know."
"Was anyone else in the room?" Stuart asked.
"There was someone else in the room. I couldn't see
who...but I could sense someone was there."
Phoebe thought about it for a second. "Balin's going to
kill me...just like he’s killed those other girls born on the eve of the
solstice. And he’s going to kill Piper, too."
"No!" Stuart said. "He's not."
"We don't know if this even was a premonition,” Piper
said. “ And you've never had a dream about the future."
"No..." Phoebe said, "uh...if you don't count
the time I dreamt that I got the part on Melrose Place."
She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.
"There wasn't anything to trigger this like there is
when I touch something and get a premonition," Phoebe said. "What if
I dream it again?"
"You won't," Piper said.
"Look, even if it was a premonition," Prue said,
"we've been able to change them on Charmed. So we can do it in real life,
too."
Phoebe was quiet for a moment.
"Maybe you're right, Piper," she said. "And
maybe you're right, too, Prue.
It was later that evening when Stuart sat on the steps of
The Manor thinking. The night was cool and Phoebe had gone inside to get a
sweater. She came back out and sat down next to him.
"The last Demon Dimension of the season ends in
a cliffhanger," she said, reflecting on the show they had just watched.
"And we get to star in what happens next."
"More than just star," Stuart said. "We're
going to have to write the script and direct the action if we're going to save
the world."
"Well, here's your chance to write a Charmed
episode," she said, with a half-smile.
"Then I guess you'll direct it," he said.
"No, I haven't directed yet. That's Prue's
department."
"Right...she directed that Be Careful What You Witch
For episode," he said.
"Well," Phoebe said after a moment's silence,
"after tonight's show at least now we know."
"Time has its weak spot," he said. "The eve
of the solstice is the day it's vulnerable to manipulation. And it's also the
day demons' powers are amplified."
"That's why the Frubos daggers would have made them
invincible on Sunday," Phoebe said. "And why Argyris can reverse time
then if he gets the six linked souls. And surrounding their bodies with
Pentagrams let him get their souls after Balin killed them."
"And we still don't know how to find him," Stuart
said, with a little pessimism.
"We'll find him," Phoebe said confidently. "We
were brought were to save the world.” She was silent for a moment. “We're not
going to fail."
"Isn't this the part in Charmed episodes where one of
you comes up with a plan?" Stuart asked.
"Yes - or the situation becomes more desperate,"
she answered. "Depending upon how the episode was written."
"This certainly has not been the vacation you expected
to have during Charmed’s hiatus," he said.
"No, it hasn't," Phoebe agreed. "And after
over five weeks of being chased and almost killed by demons and warlocks, not
to mention a few kidnappings, twelve-hour days on the set will seem like a
vacation.
"But...what we've done here...is a much bigger
responsibility than Charmed. I've...saved lives. And there are more I have to
save. This is a whole new aspect of me."
"It's not new," Stuart said. "You just didn't
know you had it. It's been there all along - a part of the caring, un-selfish,
good person Alyssa is that you naturally give over to Phoebe. It's precisely
what I've seen in you all along. And what I told you I saw in you when we first
came here. You're a very special person...and I'm so fortunate to know
you."
The door opened and Piper came out.
"I was watching the news after The Demon
Dimension," she said. "Balin's killed again. Now Argyris has five of
the six souls he needs.
Phoebe looked at Stuart. "I guess we know how this
episode was written," she said.
Piper stood by the table in the kitchen, preparing something
in a small pan. She went over to the oven and turned it on, then went to the
refrigerator and took something from it. As she turned around, Leo
materialized.
"Leo." She
went over and threw her arms around him and kissed him, her happiness in seeing
him quite evident.
Leo responded with his arms around her, kissing her back
with equal feeling.
"I got Prue and Phoebe to go down to the Club,"
Piper said. "It's Friday night and I should be there but they'll cover for
me for two hours so we could be alone for dinner. As soon as I finish making it."
"Ahh, Piper...I can't. With this Argyris thing, they're
not letting me take any time off."
"Oh."
Piper went over to the oven and turned it off, twisting the knob with
more force than she needed. She took a small bag, went back to the table, and
emptied the pan into it. She went to the refrigerator, threw the bag onto a
shelf and slammed the door shut.
She was upset. Her relationship with Leo had gotten more
serious since the night Cindy had come so close to killing her. That was the
first night they had been together. But it wasn't the last. Maybe that had been
a mistake, her head was telling her. And being upset now is a mistake, too. Leo
isn't someone with whom she should be having this serious a relationship. Leo
is temporary, it said to her, because her being Piper is temporary.
But her heart was reminding her of how she felt when she was
with him. Of how he helped calm her each time after whatever she had gone
through, how he removed the crushing loneliness that was amplified by her fears
of what was yet to come. And of how he gave her support for what she still had
to do.
"Piper...I didn't want to cancel tonight," Leo
said.
Piper stopped. It made no sense to feel this way about Leo,
her head told her. But she couldn't help it. Since that first night they had
been together, she had been forced to admit what she really felt in her heart
for him.
And now her heart was competing with her head.
"But there's no choice," Leo went on, "this
is serious-"
And her heart just won.
"I know," she said, interrupting him. "It’s always
serious. Just like it was also serious on Monday without Argyris."
"I know that Monday night you were looking forward to
our...being together," Leo said. He had been, too. He was just as
frustrated as Piper but there was nothing he could do about it.
"Look," he said, deciding that there was nothing
he could say that would help, "they gave me information about Argyris.
About what he's going to do."
"I know, he's going to reverse time. We'll all start
walking backwards," she said, her pique showing.
"No, Piper, it's not that at all. If Argyris reverses
time, what's happened in time will go backwards. Things that we have now will
start to disappear because we'll be back before they happened."
"I think the world can get along without Survivor
and with a few less dot-coms," she said.
"Piper, you don't understand," he said. "If
time is reversed, everything that has been accomplished will be reversed. The
medicines that have been discovered will disappear. Inventions that have helped
people to live better lives will stop working.
"Wars that have been fought will start again...World
War II, World War I-"
"You mean...the dictators who started that war will
come back?" she asked.
"No, they won't be here...the people who are living
today will. But what they did will happen again. I don’t know...maybe because
Argyris is outside of time, he can make all of that evil happen without them.
"Just think of the sicknesses, the plagues, the
famines, the disasters that throughout time devastated civilization. They'll be
revisited on the world.
"You have to stop him, Piper. You and your sisters have
to find Argyris and stop him."
Piper was silent as the enormity of what Leo said sank in.
She moved closer to him and put her head on his shoulder. He responded by
putting his arms around her and holding her.
"What happens...to us?" she asked. "Do you
eventually lose your wings?
Will we
even still know each other?"
"I don't know what will happen," Leo said. "I
just know that right now, I have work to do...and so do you."
Piper lifted her head and nodded. "I know."
They kissed and as a white light covered him
he disappeared.