Chapter III: The Definition of Fun

"…and your flight takes off in a half-hour, sir."

"Thank you Sasha," said Leo absentmindedly as he glanced over the tickets.

The young woman looked taken aback. "Uh-- How do you--?"

"You're a Leo," he said casually, turning and walking away.

Sandra, confused, pulled at a chain hidden under her shirt and from which hung a small pendant in the shape of her astrological sign. The sign of Leo.

Leo weaved expertly through the crowd, without even looking up from the tickets. He felt so…connected with the people. He could sense them, their every feeling and every move (hence his expertise in the avoidance-of-collision area). He was hyperaware of every single one of them-- he'd been cut off from them for so long…

He tried to stop this train of thought from leaving the station. Leo was past that. He'd been issued an official pardon. It was all good again. Except… No. Everything was going to be fine. He just had to help Piper figure out where she was going to find her Magic, and then they could take the necessary precautions against Bar-- Brody.

Leo found the bench Piper was sitting on, and he sat down next to her, handing her one of the tickets. He caught her eye as they made the transaction, and he tried to smile encouragingly and comfortingly, but was afraid he looked more worried and troubled than anything. But maybe Piper didn't notice. She only looked at him for a split-second, anyway, and her eyes were looking red and puffy-- she'd been crying, or trying very hard not to.

"You okay?" he asked her. She nodded, biting her lip and staring at the plane ticket without really looking at it. "You can talk to me, you know," he assured her, "I am you Keeper, after all."

"What's going on?" Piper asked in a weak voice. "Last Witch? Barbados? Leonis? J… Just explain…everything."

"I can't. Not here-- Not now. I'm sorry," he added quickly, seeing Piper's face, "really, I am, but we're too exposed here. Once we're in the air, I'll explain it all. I promise."

"Cross your heart?" asked Piper, looking at him. She didn't think to feel childish saying it.

"Cross my heart."

Piper managed a small smile and looked at her knees. She was thinking about things. Things left behind. Clothes, trinkets, stuffed animals from her childhood. What she wouldn't give to have that stupid bear, just to hold it and wait for the storm to pass…

Leo put a hand on her shoulder and got up. It was time to go.

"Okay!" Eve jumped the last few steps of the front porch and clapped her hands, rubbing them together conspiratorially. "Which one do you want?"

"Which what do I want?" Brody asked.

"Duh! Which car?" Eve motioned to the many cars parked on the street. "Come on, I'll getcha any one you want."

"Eve, we don't need a car," Brody said, following Eve onto the street. "we're demons, 'amember? We can just--"

"Poof! there, I know, but it's fun to steal stuff, so shut up and pick a car." Eve walked around a blue car, examining it. "Hmmmm…." she said, scrutinizing.

"I like it," she finally stated. She looked up at Brody. "You like it? I like it."

"I like it. You like it?"

"I like it." Eve circled the car once more. "Just…"

"Just what?" Brody demanded. "You said you liked it."

"Yeah, I do, but…"

Brody sighed. Women. "What's wrong with it?"

"The color."

"What about it?"

"It's blue."

"So?"

"I hate blue."

"So don't get the blue one."

"No, I like the blue one."

"You just said--"

"I like it, I just don't like the fact that's blue, but the car itself I like."

"Eve, you're impossible. Just change the color, then."

"I can't."

"What are you talking about?! You're the First Witch, you started every major war known to man, you turned the Nile red--"

"I do love red," Eve agreed.

"--you instigated the Crucifixion of Christ, and you're saying that you can't change the color of a car?"

Eve looked the car and shrugged. "I don't know how an apple would fix this."

"An apple? What is it with you and apples?!"

"They are my trademark, thank you very much!"

"Well they're a bloody stupid trademark!"

"DON'T. DISS. THE APPLES!!"

"Okay, fine!" Brody turned to back to the car. "I'll change it!" He snapped his fingers, and the blue faded smoothly into canary yellow. "Better?" he asked Eve.

She cocked an eyebrow. "It's yellow."

"Uh…" Brody looked from Eve to the car to Eve again, confused. "Yeah. Yellow. You like yellow, don't you?"

Eve scoffed, annoyed and angry at him for being such a…guy. "I hate yellow!"

"What about that dress I gave you? Uh…when was it, when was it?" Brody scratched his chin and looked the pavement, thinking hard. Suddenly he looked up and snapped his fingers, saying "Aha! It was Greece! B.C. something, and I got you that silk dress for your birthday--"

"Oh, no, it was for--" Eve tried to interrupt.

"--and it was yellow," Brody continued over her, "and you said 'Barbados, I love it, thank you.'"

"I was lying because I thought you killed that whats-her-face for it, and I knew you gave her thing that would do the…the thing!"

"Uh…you mean Eleni?" Brody asked. He was trying to remember who was going to cause chaos in that time period.

"No, no," Eve shook her head vigorously, making her brown, red, and white locks whip around her head, "it was like 'Amanda' or 'Panda' or something--"

"Pandora?" ventured Brody.

Eve snapped her fingers and pointed at Brody like they were playing charades and he'd just guessed what she was miming. "Yeah, that's the one!"

Brody passed a hand over eyes and sighed angrily/frustratedly. (Angristratedly, if you will.) "Eve--" he began, but he changed his mind. Better not to poke the dragon with a stick. "What color do you want?"

"What color do you think I want?" she asked playfully. With Eve, the word was synonymous with "evilly."

"Dammit Eve! Okay, that's it!" Brody snapped his fingers and the car's yellow paint was instantly a bright red. "Get in the goddamn car!" Eve didn't move. "NOWISH!" he yelled.

Eve let out a scared squeak that was half a giggle and jumped into the passenger seat while Brody got in on the driver's side. He pulled the door closed so hard that that Eve had expected the window glass to crack.

Brody gripped the steering wheel in vice-like hands and glared out the windshield. He didn't say anything for a moment.

Finally he said gruffly "You like the car?"

Eve smiled. "Red's my favorite," she said cheerfully.

"Good." Brody put a key that materialized out of nowhere into the ignition and started the car. "So…" he said, trying to regain his composure, "What now?"

"Duh! Road trip!"

"Road trip with Eve," Brody groaned, passed a hand over his eyes and dragged his fingers through his black hair, "The very definition of fun."

Eve immediately began singing in a nasal, annoying voice, " 'F' is for friends who do stuff togeth--"

Brody cried out in mock agony. "You created that monstrosity too?!"

Eve laughed, shaking her head. "No, that work of art I cannot claim."

"Ye-ee-eesh," Brody drew out the word in a shiver, giving it multiple syllables. "Anyway, moving on. Where exactly are we going to drive to?"

"Oh, I don't know," Eve said sarcastically playful (as always), and snapped her fingers. They were suddenly looking out the windows at a completely different road, in a forest, with a sign not far away that said:

Paris12 km

"How about Paris?"

"Or better yet," Brody turned to her, a thought suddenly entering his mind, "How about London?"

Eve smiled. "I love it when you talk chaos to me."

Piper hated planes. She truly hated them. Even though she could count the times that she'd actually been on a plane on one hand, she had definitely had her fill of them. She didn't like the way they made her feel like her stomach had been pushed up into her chest on takeoff, or how she always felt like there was a chunk of something in the back of her throat for hours after she'd gotten off the damn thing.

So as the plane took off with the "small bit" of turbulence that "Jenni, you're friendly flight attendant" that had warned them about, Piper couldn't help but close her eyes, clench her teeth, and accidentally cause Leo's hand to bleed.

"It's okay, the worst is over," he said, gingerly prying her hand off of his. "Quite a grip you've got there," he added with a small laugh.

"What?" Piper asked, not catching on. Then she saw the cuts on his knuckles where her nails had dug in. "Oh! Oh, god, sorry!"

"It's okay, watch," Leo held out his hand for her to see, "Now you see it," the cuts shrunk and closed, leaving no scabs, and only a few droplets of blood on his knuckles, "now you don't."

"That's amazing." Piper said, astonished. "Can I do that too?"

"No," Leo sighed. "You don't have any magic yet."

"Yeah…be a doll and explain all that to me, wouldja?"

By the time he'd finished, Piper kind of wished she hadn't asked in the first place. He told her that, due to the complete ignorance-- or worse, fictionalization-- of magic by humans, the god, Yahweh, and the goddess, Shekinah, had decided that mankind didn't deserve the gift of its presence anymore. So, they began to filter out all traces of magic, relocating them to various storage areas, such as constellations, clouds, and other things that humans take for granted. Over the past few centuries, all creatures of magic, from dragons to elves, had been sifted out, and only one category of vessels of magic on earth remained-- those who were human: witches. The only solution was to stop witch-births, so that the population of witches on earth would dwindle as each of them grew old and died, until there was just one left: the Last Witch. Piper.

Now, as Leo had explained, the ultimate right of passage for witches was finding their own magic, in something ordinary. For example, if a witch loved to dance, but he thought it was too feminine a hobby, then he overcame that and did what he loved, then he would gain not just his magic, but his right to it. With Piper, however, there were some complex circumstances. They didn't have time for her to live a Disney Channel movie and find her magic-- Brody would surely strike before that. But there was-- allegedly-- another way to gain one's magic: a possibly mythical ritual that takes place in a sacred area somewhere most likely in France.

"But Brody no doubt already knows that, so we have to move fast and find it before he does," Leo finished.

It took Piper's pounding head a minute to tell her to say something. "You've really thought this out, haven't you?"

"I've been in retirement for the last three-and-a-half billion years. What else was I going to do, play golf?"

Piper smiled. He reminded her of Kyle a little bit. Well, Kyle without the constant Buffy, Angel, and Charmed references. Emphasis on Charmed.

"So are your parents psychic and mean or are you just really unlucky?" Piper looked at him, hoping she was misunderstanding him. Leo smiled. "Do you have a sister named Paige? A cat named Kit, perhaps?"

"Oh…" Piper groaned, "dammit."