A sly smirk slid across a Paige’s face. “Yeah,” she said, seeming to have not heard Phoebe. “I think I finally know what Richard was getting at. This whole world of magic at my fingertips. I can-“
“-feel it flowing through our veins,” Piper finished in unison with Paige.
“Girls? Chris?” said Grams, a hint of Phoebe’s worry now creeping into her voice. “Remember what we did this for. You’re not meant to have this power.” The four normal Halliwell sisters exchanged worried glances.
“For the greater good,” they replied in unison.
“Sure. You mean ‘the greater good’ as in saving your family. You remember your family,” prodded the older Phoebe.
The three laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Pheebs,” replied Paige, rolling her eyes. “We’re still us. Just...”
“…more,” the three power-amped witches replied in unison again.
Prue’s eyebrows shot up as she narrowed her eyes. “Riiight. Real normal,” she nodded, sarcastically.
Triad Piper smiled sardonically. “No, really. It’s hard to explain, but it’s not like when I was possessed by Shakti.”
“Or Athena,” said Paige.
“Or that Spider Queen… thing,” added Chris.
Piper nodded. “Right. We don’t feel any other personalities influencing us.”
Prue cocked her head. “Except for this whole ‘we’ thing. Unless you’re magical royalty now?” The barb practically dripped Prue’s own particular brand of sarcasm.
“We’re just connected, so 'we' makes more sense,” Chris tried to explain, his voice taking on the know-it-all lecturing professor tone the older sisters were far too familiar with. “See, the ritual had to link our magical essences which-“ Piper and Paige’s posture’s shifted ever so slightly and Chris threw his hands up in apology. “Jeez, okay, okay.” He crossed his arms. “It’s one thing to get lectured from your mom and aunt, but when it’s coming back at me in my own voice too… Okay. Maybe this is a little weird.”
Penny planted her arms hard akimbo on her hips. “You three have saved Leo and Wyatt. You remember them?”
“Of course, Grams,” replied Piper and the other two Triad witches waved their hands in a circular motion. Leo materialized in front of the three in a white flash.
“How did I get here?” he asked, glancing around. “And what happened to you guys?”
Piper stepped up to Leo, and cupped her hands on his face, letting her robe’s billowy sleeves pool at the crook of her elbows. Leo was frozen, not by her powers, but because he was stunned by the depth of feeling in her eyes as she locked gazes with him. It was a look he hadn’t shared with someone since he’d last seen his wife 40 years prior. It was electric.
Piper pulled Leo’s face down to her own, with Leo himself stunned enough to simply go along, and quickly found his lips on hers. The power of her conviction locked him into a passionate, if relatively chaste kiss. Piper’s younger self looked on and was again surprised by the twinge of jealousy that quirked in the pit of her stomach. Both at the kiss, and at the ability of her older self to take what she wanted - no awkward fumbling evident.
Piper pulled back, eyes still locked with Leo’s, and an impish grin on her lips. “Sorry – I just couldn’t help myself. I'm just so relieved. It’s done.”
Leo fought a losing battle against the grin pulling at his mouth. “Uh, no problem. I understand,” he stole a glance in Penny’s direction and regretted it instantly when he saw her raised single eyebrow of wrath. Piper was still her granddaughter, future ultra-powerful witch, and his wife, or not. He nodded quickly and stuffed his hands into his pockets self-consciously.
Piper caught all this but let it slide. She felt good. Weirdly good. ‘And don’t forget the power,’ answered another voice in her head, composed of Paige’s, Chris’s, and her own voices. It made discerning who was saying what difficult. ‘Right. But a powerful force of good. I’ve never felt so serene-confident-sure.’ The final three words came all at once and she couldn’t be sure which originated with her and which came from her sister and son. Not that it bothered her. All three fit.
She looked back at Leo. “You’re safe. We did it, and brought you here,” answering his previous question warmly.
Leo looked at the three witches in what was obviously some kind of magical garb. “Right. But how did you…?”
“Meet the new Triad,” replied Prue.
“The good guy version, anyway,” added the younger Phoebe.
“What?” Leo asked. “That kind of power – it’s dangerous.”
“What part of ‘good’ went over your head, Leo?” answered Paige with a laugh.
Leo shook his head. “You’re not meant to have that kind of power – not in this way. No one is. There’s a reason the forces of good haven’t formed a Triad before. The Charmed Ones are supposed to be the closest answer to that. But you and your sisters aren’t so deeply connected; not like this.”
“Right. And look where that’s gotten us time and time again,” answered Triad Piper. Suddenly, a shaggy looking blonde haired demon shimmered in at the top of the attic stairs. A gaggle of five other demons shimmered in just a moment behind him, all holding strange totems. Had Kaalaya still been alive, he would have recognized the scruffy blonde as the demon he had ordered to disrupt the Charmed One’s ritual earlier.
The demon wore a cockily threatening look on his face and opened his mouth to speak but was struck by a purple energy beam which disintegrated him instantly. The totem toting demons all shimmered away instantly, a second energy beam striking the spot where they had just been a millisecond too late to connect.
“See?” said Piper brightly. “Good! Can you imagine if that had happened before we did this?” She gestured at Paige and Chris.
“We’d have handled it,” answered Penny.
“Like you handled it with Mom at the lake, Grams?” Penny’s mouth popped open in a stunned protest at this jab, but Piper continued, turning to the older Phoebe. “Or like we handled it with Prue?”
Prue blinked. She knew she wasn’t in the future, at least for a while, but there was something about the way that Piper had juxtaposed whatever happened to her with what happened to their mother. Her gut sank, but she tried to push it out of her mind. She could feel her Piper and her Phoebe move close ranks in on her, not hugging, but a definite light brushing contact, and knew that they’d noticed it too. She tried to push it out of her mind for the moment.
“This could be a better way,” said Chris.
“Like the Avatars had a better way?” rejoined the older Phoebe, the only one with the knowledge of everything the others had been through.
“Of course not, Pheebs,” answered Paige, chuckling. “We’re just talking about the ultimate good. We could be that force. We don’t wanna be dictators. Just act as a force for making things better. Giving good a chance to rule.”
“And how long ‘til all this good gets too good? Like the kind of good we saw when then cosmic balance got all messed up and a bullet took the place of a parking ticket?” Phoebe tried to remind them.
Piper chuckled as well. “We’re not going nuts, Phoebe.”
“Yeah?” Phoebe raised an eyebrow. “What’s with all the smirking and laughing then?”
“We just feel…”
“…good” they finished in unison.
“Not just like, having a good day good,” said Chris.
“Or we just saved the day good. I mean, yeah, that too, but more like-“
“-paragons of what’s right kind of good, down to our bones,” finished Piper for Paige. “It’s hard to describe. Like powerful, but in an ‘everything’s clear for the first time’ kind of way.”
“But this isn’t your destiny. It’s no one’s,” said Leo. He stepped up to Triad Piper, took her hands in his, and looked into her eyes. “You told me yourself, just hours ago. You saw the future – the future you’ve been fighting for, for years. Us, in the future, happy… with grandchildren at our feet… I know what I feel from you is true. I may not be your Leo – not yet – but I know what I feel from your heart.” His eyes glistened, tearing up from a well deep inside himself, that this woman had somehow tapped.
Piper looked up at him, and the battle between the power of the ultimate good and the ultimate love played in her eyes. Paige and Chris both watched the couple as well, feeling what Piper felt as if it were their own. Piper bit her lip. “But it could be better…” she said in a small, tight voice.
The Phoebe of her time stepped to Chris and Paige. “It could always be better. But that’s not the point… it’s the shades of grey. True good doesn’t deal in absolutes. It’s about free will, and letting the world work itself out. Where would either of you be without that? Where would any of us be?” she asked. “If the Elders, or any other powerful force of good had unilaterally had their way, even in the name of good… we wouldn’t have you.” She turned to Paige. “We wouldn’t have you, to reconstitute the power of three.” She turned to Chris. “And we never would have had you to warn us of the danger to Wyatt… or Wyatt for that matter” She brushed his beard-stubbled cheek with the back of her fingers and smiled warmly. “Who would I have to spoil?” She turned back to Paige. “Or to dish with about the hotties at P3?” A tear rolled down Paige’s cheek as a smile tugged at her lips. “No one, and no power, can see everything needed in this world as long as there’s free will. And there’s no such thing as good when there’s no free will. And if you’re really filled with good, deep down you still know that.”
Paige, Chris, and Piper looked at each other and their faces were soon wiped of the emotions brought out by Phoebe and Leo. The rest of the Halliwells looked on with bated breath as they saw the three’s faces flutter for an instant between searching and then resignation, before finally settling into a resolved peaceful serenity. The three turned to their family and spoke in unison. “We can’t.”