Title: Dealing With The Way Things Are

Summary: Willard breaks up with Zelda. Zelda has yet to deal with her feelings and she has pushed them all down in her soul. Hilda has come up with a way to finally force Zelda to deal with her heartbreak head on. Will it work? Or will it just drive Zelda into such a place of depression that she may never come out of it?

Harvey has finally learned the truth about Sabrina and her aunts. He is dealing with not only the fact that magic is well and he is in love with a bona fined witch, but Sabrina still has confusion over her feelings for him and Josh. Will Sabrina finally realizes which way her heart beats in time or will she lose her soul mate for good?

Season: Alternant Season Four -- Middle

Category: Drama/ Family/ Hut/Comfort/ Tragedy/ Angst/ Spiritual

Rating: Overall T - but some parts will be M and will be marked.

CHAPTER ONE

THE SPELL

Hilda walked into the kitchen and paused as she watched Zelda make a sandwich. She took a deep calming breath as she played with her hands which were in front of her. She tossed her head once for a little luck and she walked over to the counter and stopped next to her older sister. "Zelly …." She began.

Zelda quickly jumped in without looking at her younger sister, "You know this making a sandwich the mortal way sure does take time. I should have just used magic." She quickly moved away from her sister and left the plate with the finished sandwich behind. She quickly moved around the counter top and started on the way to the door that would led out of the kitchen and to the door that led to the back yard.

"Zelda, we need to talk about this." Hilda said softly as she pointed her finger and caused her older sister to stop in her place. "You can't keep running away from this matter."

Zelda just stared at the closed French style doors that would have led her away from this uncomfortable conversion and allow her some freedom. She tried to take a calming breath but she couldn't breathe around the lump in her throat. The lump that had yet to leave since Willard had broken up with her. "I'm not running away from anything." She softly said still not turning around to face the concern in her sister's eyes.

"Than why won't you stay in the same room as me?" Hilda asked as she silently said a spell to cause the doors and the windows to lock themselves and remain locked until either she or Sabrina unlocked them.

"I just have things to do is all. I have to do the garden work, go to the grocery, get the car checked out, pick up Sabrina from school …." Zelda said walking towards the French doors once more and she put her right hand on one of the handles and pulled. It didn't budge. She frowned darkly as she tried once more. No such luck. Well no spell could keep her in the manor so she did a counter acting spell and pulled once more. No such luck. She dropped her hand and turned quickly around facing a innocent and concerned looking Hilda. "How dare you trap me here." She hissed her face turning a ugly purple. "Take the spell off now, Hilda." She seethed.

"No." Hilda simply said as she sat down in a chair. "I'm sorry Zelly, but until you have dealt with your heart break you may not leave this house." She sighed as she looked up into her extremely angry sister's eyes. "The doors and windows will open for Sabrina and me but they will close the moment you try to leave the manor. You may of course continue to try to open them; I'm not so cruel that I want you to be physically hurt …"

"So you just want me to be mental ally hurt." Zelda blew some stray hair out of her eyes in her annoyance.

Hilda quickly stood to her feet and walked over and put her arms around her older sister arms. "Of course not, Zelly, I just want you to take the time to finally deal with your heart break. So you can finally move on with your life is."

"I don't have a heart break. Willard has every right to decide to be a free agent and enjoy his freedom now that he's finally over his bitter divorce." Zelda said jerking backwards causing Hilda's arms to drop. She swallowed around the lump. "Sides how I deal with my breakup feelings is my concern and my alone."

"That's just it Zelly, you aren't dealing. You are just pushing the feelings of loss and abandonment down into your soul; just as you did when Jacob Wolf Kranz of Dubno dumped you back in 1781. It's not healthy and it's very un ….."

Zelda just turned and stormed away from her sister towards the staircase that led up to the second floor where her bedroom was located. At least in her own private room she wouldn't be bothered. She would just zap the magic book from Sabrina's room into her own and she'll find a way out of the stupid spell that Hilda had put on the manor. Than she would find another place to live alone. Well she would bring Sabrina along ….. the girl still needed her after all. But Hilda would be left alone. She paused on the last step on the second floor. She would kick Hilda out of the manor; seeing how the manor was in her name after all. Hilda belonged in a dingy and creepy studio apartment after all. She stormed down the hallway that led to her bedroom and she was relived that Hilda had decided to take the opposite side of the upstairs for her own use.

WESTBRIDGE HIGH SCHOOL STUDY HALL

Valerie leaned forward and gently tapped the end of her pencil in Harvey's stiff back; she waited until he turned around and faced her. "Why did you break up with Sabrina?" She whispered not wanting the teacher to hear her.

"It's none of your business." Harvey's eyes twitched in anger as he turned back around and looked back on his English book, not really taking in what he had to read for his school assignment.

"We are friends, aren't we?" Valerie whispered not giving up on the boy in front of her. "You and Sabrina are perfect for one and another, soul mates."

Harvey turned around and glared into Valerie's open eyes. "Since when do soul mates decided to fall for someone else?"

Valerie blinked. "Did I miss something? I know that I have been gone for a few months, but last time I checked you and Sabrina had been as close as always."

"Didn't Sabrina fill you in on Josh at the coffee shop." Harvey snorted through his nose as his hands twitched on his open school book.

Valerie shook her head. "Only thing that she had said was that she worked with a guy named Josh at her new job." She shrugged her shoulders. "That was when I first told her that I wasn't going to return to West Bridge."

"Well Josh is not some guy, he's some man. He's twenty years old and a junior Emerson University. He has slithered his way into Sabrina's heart and has successfully stolen her from me." Harvey said as he turned around once more and slammed his book closed just as the bell rang. He jerked his bag from behind his chair and slammed the book into it crushing his math homework in the process.

Valerie tried to process everything that Harvey had told her as she quickly stood to her feet and followed Harvey out into the hallway. She tried to catch up with him before he stormed away but he was just too quick for her. She almost waved her right hand and cried out his name when suddenly she was jerked to a dead stop and jerked into a tight bear hug. She wrapped her arms around the back just to save herself from falling into the person and knocking both down. She didn't pay any attention to the excited squeal in her right ear and she didn't fully place the person until she was pulled away and face to face with a smiling Sabrina Spellman.

Sabrina face fell when the first words out of her best friend's mouth was, "How could you break Harvey's heart!"

Tears came to the corner of her eyes as the image of Harvey's face came to her minds eyes. She leaned backwards against the bank of lockers. "I screwed everything up so royally, Val. I shouldn't have taken that job at the coffee house; than I wouldn't have met Josh."

"The last thing I heard about this Josh, guy, was that he was your coworker." Val frowned deeply. "Why haven't you filled me in on this sooner, Sabrina, I thought we were friends. Best friends. But I guess I was wrong." With that she turned and walked away.

Sabrina stared after Valerie with a deep frown as she realized that she had yet again screwed up royally in her personal life.

"Dention Ms. Spellman." Mr. Kraft said stopping in front of Sabrina and quickly wrote on a thick pile of paper with a black leather board underneath them.

"Don't you think you should return Aunt Zelda's gift, Mr. Kraft, or at least toss it? Now that you have broken up with her." Sabrina said with a sneer on her lips as she glared at the gift that her Aunt had so loving and happily had given her principal the previous year for their two month anniversary.

"Triple dention for the attuide Ms. Spellman, and I see your aunts have yet to teach you manners." Mr. Kraft said ripping off the paper and handing it over.

Sabrina took it and ripped it up into tiny pieces. "I'm not going to serve this dention or any others that you decide to unfairly hand out to me."

"Oh is that so?" Mr. Kraft demanded folding his arms across his chest with his clipboard pressed to his chest.

"Yes that is so." Sabrina's chin stuck out in defiance.

"Well you will be in front of the school board for this missy." Mr. Kraft said getting a bright gleam in his eyes. "I will finally have you out of my school once and for all."

"If you do that, Willard than I will just tell the school board that you had used and abused both of my aunts to ruin me." Sabrina put her right index finger on her chin. "They frown upon that still; don't they?"

"That's Mr. Kraft to you; Ms. Spellman and I didn't use and abuse your aunts. I just found that they weren't the women that were for me was all." Mr. Kraft said tensing up.

"You dated and made my Aunt Zelda think that you two had a future together for more than a year and half, Mr. Kraft, than you just up and dumped her without giving her a reason." Sabrina sneered.

"Zelda completely understands why I can't be with her; she knew that I would much rather have her be free to finally find her soul mate, than be saddled down with me when I don't even want to be married ever again." Mr. Kraft said. "I do still care for Zelda, my little ZuZu, but I want her to be happy and she won't be with me."

"I should have allowed Lucy to take you away from my Aunt Zelda's life when I had a chance," Sabrina stood straight and tall once more. "But no, I had to be kind and think of my Aunt's feelings and I had to tell her the truth. What a waste. She would have been fine by now if I had just allowed her to go through the heart break last year." She walked away from Kraft. She stopped and turned around suddenly. "Oh and Willard, if you plan on causing trouble for Harvey and Valerie for the rest of the year than I will go to the school board and report your actions." With that she turned and stormed down the hall.

SPELLMAN MANOR ZELDA'S ROOM

Once her door was closed and magically locked; Zelda lifted her right index finger and pointed it to her bed and the Spellman family magic book appeared in a swill of lights and a light musical note. She was pleased that Sabrina had inherited her magical powers and not Hilda's. Matter of fact Sabrina as more like her than anyone else in the family; her mother included. Zelda felt like Sabrina was her daughter and not her niece. But she never once told Sabrina that because she knew that Sabrina would feel guilty for her mother not being around. Zelda never told Hilda or Ted this because she very well knew her sister and brother would take Sabrina from her and not allow her access to her niece.

That would be worse than death for Zelda Spellman, no matter how much heartbreak she could suffer for not finding her soul mate and finally having a family of her own; she couldn't bare the thought of losing her "adoptive" daughter.

Zelda walked over to her bed and sat down in the middle and put her hand on the book and opened it up. She sighed deeply as she tried to think of the spell that Hilda had used to trap her in the manor. "I can't find the spell on my own – so Spellman Magic book help me find the spell – that will set me free – and finally rid me of my annoying younger sister."

The book remained still.

Zelda groaned in annoyance she tried rewording her enchantment. "I can't find the spell on my own – so Spellman Magic book help me find the spell – that will set me free – and finally rid me of my annoying younger sister who has used her magic to her own selfish means, Hilda."

The book remained still.

"Whose side are you on?" Zelda demanded glaring at the book and pounding it with her right fist. She lifted her hand up with a wince.

The book quickly turned rapidly.

"Finally." Zelda sighed as she waited impatiently for the book to finally settle on the right page.

"Zelda!" Ted voice said from where he was looking up from the page that the book had finally stopped on.

Zelda rolled her eyes. "Not now Ted, I need to find the correct spell to counter act the spell that Hilda had placed on the manor to keep me trapped."

"I all ready know about the spell, Zelda, and the witch's council had ordered me to tell you that you will not find the counter spell ….. you are to remain in the manor until you are ready to deal with your heart break."

"We'll see about that. I can always go to the other realm." Zelda snorted folding her arms across her chest.

"Granted the council can't deny you access to the other realm, but I can." Ted said looking up meaningfully into his sister's eyes. "I can't allow you to leave Sabrina, not now. She needs you and Hilda more now than ever."

"Hilda is no longer welcome in my home, but I will be there for Sabina of course." Zelda said her expression softening at Sabrina's name. "I would never go to the other realm without Sabrina anyway."

"Sabrina's place is there in West Bridge, especially now as she has to deal with her own heart break over the loss of Harvey. Her decision that she has to make between Harvey and Josh and helping Harvey understand magic." Ted said. "Escaping even for a week isn't an option. For Sabina or for you, Zelly."

"You have no right to tell me how to run my life, I'm an adult. For crying out loud I'm six hundred and fifty four years old." Zelda said shaking her head as she fought her emotions down. She had to remain strong here; especially in front of her brother, Sabrina's father. If she fell apart in front of him than he would zap Sabrina away from her and she would never see her beloved niece ever again.

"You and Hilda must work together and help Sabrina though this time of her life." Ted continued.

"I can deal with this on my own Ted; I don't need Hilda's flimsy ways of helping but actually getting in my way for the rest of Sabrina's training of her witch craft." Zelda lifted her chin. "I have it fully under control."

Ted shook his head. "I signed the custody papers for both you and Hilda to finish raising Sabrina. If both of you can't do it than I'll bring Sabrina back home with me."

Zelda's right hand reached out in a stop motion with her palm downward. "Oh no, Ted, please don't do that. Please leave Sabrina with me, please." She swallowed around the lump in her throat. "I wont' kick Hilda out of the manor ….. at least not until Sabrina is finished with her witch training."

Ted's head nodded firmly. "Good." His eyes soften. "Zelly, please just deal with the heart ache over Kraft breaking up with you. Sabrina needs you to be strong and able to help her through her own heart breaks in her lives. I'm not just talking about now with this little break of hers and Harvey's but I'm talking about later on in life."

"Ted, I really am not all that heart broken over Monkey dumping me. He explained his reasoning and I understand. It just won't work out between the two of us and he has released me to go out with other men." Zelda shoulders shrugged.

"You protest too much," Ted said with a shake of his head. "The spell to keep you in the manor stands, Zelly, it's for your own good. You may not see it now, but in time you will." With that the magic book closed

Zelda sighed deeply through her nose and pointed her finger and zapped the book back to Sabrina's room …. She had no use of the family magic book any longer. She fell back onto the bed and closed her eyes as she tried to think of another way of ending the spell.

END CHAPTER ONE