Post by StoryGirl83 on Sept 20, 2008 19:29:31 GMT -5
Chapter Fifteen – Fair’s Fair
and a demon
with
Alanna looked at Janice. “Can you give me some demon ice cycles, please?”
Janice gave her sister a tiny nod as she walked around the table and held out her hands. Cold blasts of air formed around her as ice blasts from her hands encompassing the demon in a solid block of ice. She tossed a smile back at her twin. “I’m ready for some demon shish kabob.”
“Happy to oblige,” Alanna tossed back. “Hope this is the right demon,” she added as she held out her hands and fire streamed from them to the demon’s frozen, decapitated body.
Once more the extreme temperature change caused the demon to explode, but this time he stayed gone and four illusionary friends dissolved into nothing as did his head.
Alanna grinned at her twin. “That rocked.”
Janice chuckled. “Just don’t put me down for another one of those for at least a day or two.”
“Good job, girls,” Paige praised her daughters as Henry breathed a sigh of relief.
“Hey!” Wyatt protested. “They didn’t do all the work.”
“No,” Paige said as she looked at Prue and Piper. “I’d say it was a family effort.”
“I’d agree,” Piper concurred. “Now, let’s keep this family together and figure out a way to keep our new members.”
“I want to meet Grandpa first,” Pat announced. She hadn’t seen him since she was only a year old, so her memories were nonexistent.
Piper turned around, startled. She had momentarily forgotten Victor was there. “Sorry, Dad. With everything that just happened . . .” She trialed off and smiled. “I’ll let Prue introduce you to her family, but first let me introduce you to my Melinda.”
Melinda looked over at Piper, a smile on her lips. She walked over to Victor and stopped. She looked down at her arms. About half of her arm below her elbow was transparent. Trying ignore that for the moment, she looked back at Victor. “I know you don’t know me, but I remember you and it’s really good to see you, again. I’m Melinda.” She looked down at her hands, again.
Victor saw how much that bothered her, and though the see through arms really bothered him, a lot, he decided she came first, this granddaughter of his. “Do you want a hug or not?”
Melinda looked up, bewildered.
“Look you’re Piper’s daughter, right?” Victor asked, smiling at her. When she nodded he continued, “Which makes you Chris’ sister, right?”
“I guess,” Melinda admitted. After all, weird as it seemed, these two young men where her brothers for as long as she existed at least. “Why?”
Chris chuckled, causing Wyatt to give him a look. “What did I miss?”
It was Victor who answered. “The first time I met Chris, he ran into the room and hugged me without even introducing himself first. I had no idea who this grungy stranger in a trench coat was.”
“Hey!” Chris protested. “I had good reason for wearing those clothes.”
“Chasing a demon or something,” Victor commented. “Not a good reason in my mind.”
“Checking out a lead,” Chris informed him, trying to sound annoyed. “And I think the point of this conversation was that you wanted Melinda to give you a hug.”
Melinda grinned at Chris’ words. “That I can oblige.” She closed the gap between her and Victor and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tight. “I love you, Grandpa.”She let go of him and stepped away.
Victor looked around. His eyes stopped on Pat and Vicki still in Andy’s protective grip. Victor walked over to them. “You must be Prudence’s girls.”
Vicki’s eyes widened and she turned to look at Pat. “Did he just call Mom Prudence?”
Pat nodded. “That’s what he calls her. Mom told me.” She looked up at Andy. “We’re safe now, Dad. You can let go.”
Andy smiled down at her. “Sometimes it’s hard to give up the instinct to protect even in safe times.” And these times are far from safe, he mentally added even as he let go of Pat and Vicki.
Pat walked over to Victor. “Fair’s fair. I want a hug, too.”
“Life’s not fair,” Vicki said, quoting words she had heard all her life.
Victor was having none of that. He pulled Pat into a hug and over her head informed her sister that, “Maybe not, but this grandpa is.”
“In that case,” Vicki began, a smile warming on her face, as she crossed to Victor’s side and latched onto him.
Victor smiled and put one arm around her as well, hugging both girls. He looked over the tops of their heads at Andy. “I guess that makes you Prudence’s husband.”
“Andrew Trudeau, sir,” Andy agreed.
“So Piper tells me,” Victor admitted.
“We have met before,” Andy offered. “At least I think you’ve met me. I seem to remember seeing you as a kid. Later . . .” He trailed off, not wanting to bring up painful thoughts.
Victor let it pass. “I know I didn’t do so great with them.”
“We almost met once later,” Andy remembered, trying to differentiate between memories before and after time split, but then that had come only after he was dead, and this was clearly before then. “You had come over shortly after Prue and I started dating, again. I just dropped her off at the restaurant thought. I didn’t come in. After I died, I saw you, but you sure didn’t see me. Besides that’s where the realities diverge, a few months after I died.”
“How about we don’t talk about the fact that you just conversationally brought up the fact that you died, nearly thirty years ago,” Victor suggested, uncomfortable about the idea, “and yet are standing in front of me, talking to me?”
Andy chuckled, “Deal.”
“How about we deal with the fact that I don’t want to lose him, again,” Prue suggested, uncomfortable with talking about Andy’s death for an entirely different reason than her father, “like I did nearly thirty years ago and see if we can fix it so they can stay?”
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Piper agreed.
“Let’s do this,” Paige concurred, “and this time, make it work.”
“You’re going to try my idea, Aunt Paige?” Wyatt asked, pretending like he actually believed they would. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t be thrilled if they were, but he just didn’t think they would. Maybe they wouldn’t need to or maybe he was wrong. He just wanted the chance to find out.
Paige looked at him with eyebrows raised. “How did you get that out of what I said?”
Wyatt shrugged, a smile on his face. “You said you want to make it work.”
“You got to give him points for tenacity,” Chris smiled.
“Not stubbornness,” Wyatt argued, “confidence.”
“From what I read of your idea,” Paige told him, “if it backfired, we’d probably end up losing you, too. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I’m willing to risk it,” Wyatt informed her, his eyes resting on Melinda, Andy, Pat, and Vicki, before coming back to Paige. “Besides, I don’t think it will backfire.”
“Enough talk of this,” Piper announced. “We aren’t doing anything that will chance us losing anyone else.”
Wyatt shrugged. “Let me know if you change your mind. For now, I guess I’ll try and come up with some other idea.”
Janice broke the slight tension caused by Wyatt’s renewed pushed for his idea. “Aunt Piper?”
Piper looked at her niece, startled as if she forgot she was there. “Yes, Janice.”
“Other than having learned how to focus my freezing, I’m afraid I don’t really know much about magic,” Janice admitted. “I just came over so I could have a chance to get to know my cousins, so if the worst happened, I’d have memories. Do you really need Pat and Vicki upstairs? Because if you don’t I was thinking maybe Alanna and I could do something with them, like a game or something.”
At a look from Piper, Prue nodded. “If they want to, they can play a game with you.”
Having gained Prue’s permission, Janice turned to Pat and Vicki. “Interested?”
Pat grins. “Sure. Someone else can keep track of ideas. I’m rather useless with magic, too.” Eyes older than they should be she turned to her mom and said, “Given the chance, I’ll learn.”
Since she had Pat’s answer, Janice turned to look at Vicki.
Vicki frowned and looked at her parents. “What about Dad? He’s not exactly magical either, at least not witchy magic.”
“Neither is my dad,” Janice told her, sending a smile at her father, “but from what I can tell your father has a great deal of knowledge on magical things. Certainly more than my dad, but they are both welcome to join us.”
Vicki looked imploringly at Andy. “Please, Dad.”
Andy looked at his wife, wanting to support all of his family.
Prue smiled. “Go have some fun. We’ll call you if we need you. Just let us know if something happens. We’ll have Melinda with us to help us know if things are working right.” Realizing that Melinda might have other plans, she turned to look at her niece. “Or were you planning on joining them?”
“Oh, no,” Melinda denied. “I may not be the best at magic, but I want to be with Mom and Dad. I’ll be in the attic, helping however I can, even if that is as a guinea pig.” I want to fix this mess I made.
Piper smiled at her daughters words. Turning her attention to her dad, she asked, “And you, Dad? Where do you want to go?”
Victor looked torn as he considered his options. Finally, he sighed. “I’m afraid, I’m just not much use magic.” There was also the fact that it still kind of freaked him out. “With games, however, I can hold my own.”
Piper chuckled. “Okay. Have fun, you guys. We’ll be upstairs.”