Phoebe

"You can't kick me out of the house!" I screamed at Prue.

"Yes, I can. I'm the oldest sister. I'm kicking your ass out. Pack your bags," she responded calmly.

"Fine! I can't stand living with you three anymore anyways!" I summoned my stuff. "I'm out of here."

"We're back!" Piper sang as she and Remus appeared. Her smile faded instantly. "What is going on?"

"I've been kicked out," I said simply and moved towards the door.

"Stop," Piper said. "Prue, what is she talking about?"

"This is not a whorehouse," Prue said easily. "Phoebe seems to think that it is."

"WHOREHOUSE?" I screeched. "Are you calling me a whore?"

"Yes, I am," Prue said, smiling. "I would have thought that that was obvious. Of course, I can't expect simple intelligence from you."

I swore at her and jumped on her. She flipped me over and pinned me to the ground.

"Attacking in anger gets you nowhere. I want you out now."

"Gladly!" I spat.

"Phoebe, you are not leaving," Piper said. "Both of you sit. Where's Paige?"

"Paige who?" I asked sarcastically.

"I kicked her out yesterday," Prue replied. "She was quite glad to go. Now she can be with Richard again."

"But they broke up long before we came to England."

"Now they're back together."

"Explain, please," Piper instructed.

"Phoebe started to bring home guys and Paige started to pine over Richard."

"No, no. Start at the beginning."

"Don't you want to visit with Wyatt first?" I asked. If I got her out of the room, I could probably escape.

"In a minute. It won't take you long to explain."

"Fine. Prue, you do it."

"As usual," Prue muttered.

"No bickering."

She sighed. "After you left, Phoebe and Paige started to act out of character…."

"So did you," I interrupted.

"Anyways, we all started acting differently…"

I giggled. "Just this way," I whispered to Will as I lead him towards the stairs.

"Hold it right there," the dangerous voice of Prue said as the light clicked on.

I rolled my eyes and turned around. "What are you doing up?"

"I could ask you the same thing. You were supposed to watch Wyatt this evening. Because you didn't show up, I had to cancel my date with Kingsley."

"Paige could have watched him."

"You know very well that she's too sick to do anything."

"She's better than she was yesterday," I said.

"But she's still sick," Prue said. "You were supposed to help her too."

"What about Harry?"

"Wyatt is not his responsibility. Now get rid of this boy toy and go give Paige her potion."

"How about I watch Wyatt for the rest of the week, give Paige her potions, and keep this boy toy?"

"How about no?" She pushed me up the stairs with her powers and pushed Will out the door. "You're being irresponsible and loose. What happened to Jason?"

"We broke up. He couldn't handle my secret."

Prue's gaze softened a bit. "Phoebe, I'm sorry."

I shrugged. "Makes no difference to me." I felt her looking through my mind. "Cut that out. You always make me dizzy when you do that."

"You deserve it. I can't figure out what's going on in your head."

"You don't have to. I feel perfectly normal."

"If you say so."

I went up to Paige's room, grabbing Paige's potion along the way. I opened the door to her room.

"Hey, Phoebe," she said weakly. She had dark circles under her eyes. Her forehead shone with sweat.

"Hey. How are you doing?"

"Much—" she cut off and coughed violently. "Better."

"You don't sound any better."

"Well, I'm not coughing up blood anymore. That's a definite improvement." She drank down the potion. "Yuck," she said and made a face. "Prue still won't let me get up."

"You're the baby of the family. We have to mother you." I felt my annoyance melting away. Guilt started to replace it. "Have you slept at all?"

"Yes," she said. I knew that she was lying.

"You're lying. You just don't want to take a sleeping potion."

"It tastes awful."

"It's not that bad. You need your sleep. Drink," I said.

I handed her the potion. She stared at it. "Leo brought another Elder down."

"Really?"

"Yeah. He couldn't heal me either. But the sisterhood will heal me," she said firmly.

I placed a damp washcloth on her forehead. "I'm sorry. I should have been here. I don't know why I wasn't."

"That's okay." She drank down the potion.

I smiled sadly. "Sleep." Her eyes closed and I left. The warmth that I had felt in the room left me. I started to remember why I didn't want to be with my sisters.

"How is she?" Prue asked.

"So-so." I paused, deciding to apologize. "Prue, I… I think you're wrong." Where had that come from? "You need to get off my back." Oh yeah… This was right. "I don't need this from you."

"Look, you're wrong. Just admit it."

"No, I don't think so."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that you're treating me like a child."

"That's because you're acting like a child."

"You're one to talk."

She sighed and ran her hand through her hair. "Phoebe, we're both tired. Let's just go to bed and we'll talk about this in the morning."

"Fine."

"That was how it started. That was pretty mild, actually. Well, the next morning, Paige woke us up. She was feeling great, apparently."

"BOING! BOINGIE!" Paige said and burst out laughing. "Phoebe, you should try this! It's great." She was bouncing on her bed.

"Uh, Paige, are you okay?" I asked.

"I'm great!" She fell back onto her bed. "I miss Richard," she sighed. "I think I'll orb to him." She jumped up.

"Prue won't be happy… Go ahead!"

"You wouldn't mind?"

"Of course not. You'd better go before—"

"I get up?"

"Hi, Prue," Paige said cheerfully. "I was just going to orb to Richard."

Prue stared at us for a while. Then she started to yell. "Have you both gone insane? You can't just orb to Richard's! What if he's moved on with someone else? After all, you're the one who broke it off. Phoebe, you used to be dependable. What happened?"

"We woke up and decided that you can't control us," I responded.

She glared at us. "You are not leaving this house. You may only leave to go to work. You have to be home by five unless there's an emergency at your workplace."

"Are you placing us under house arrest?"

"That's one way of saying it. You've been begging for this."

"You can't apparate as quickly as I can orb!" She started to orb but Prue stunned her. She was stuck as a mass of blue light.

"That's it! We're going to go meditate. We obviously have some things to deal with." She undid the stunning and dragged us up the stairs.

"I don't want to do this."

"That's where I came in," Piper said. "What happened after that?"

"Phoebe brought home three guys that night. I won't repeat her explanation. It's completely inappropriate." Prue glowered at me. "Paige started to get really obsessed with Richard. I thought they'd sleep it off, but they didn't."

"You became a control freak," I said.

"I did not!"

"She nearly had a stoke when some demon blood got on the carpet. She wanted everything perfect."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Prue snapped.

"Continue or I shall be forced to blow you both up."

"Fine," Prue grumbled. "When I woke up yesterday, Phoebe was passed out on the couch. Paige was on the floor. They had had a girl's night in with magical alcohol."

"Paige's idea," I said in an offhanded way.

"In the course of this, they had scared Chris and Harry away."

"I'm almost afraid to ask this," Piper said, "but what did they try to do?"

"You don't want to know, trust me," Prue said. "I immediately kicked Paige out and sent Phoebe to find where Chris and Harry had gone."

"Chris thought that Harry would be in danger while we were in that state," I said. "They were up there, trying to figure things out. Prue really lost her temper when I stayed out past my curfew. That's where we are now. Goodbye."

"Phoebe, you can't go," Chris said as he orbed in holding the book.

"Too bad," I said. "I'm going. I am sick of this."

"You're thinking only of yourself, yet again!" Prue said angrily.

"Everybody calm down!" Piper said.

"Shut up, Piper!" Prue and I said.

"Irresponsible—"

"Annoying—"

"Selfish—"

"Childish—"

"Stuck-up—"

"Brat!"

"Witch!"

"Hag!"

"Slut!"

I felt like I had been kicked in the chest. I glanced at the book and saw that the Celtic knot had separated. "Great."

"I tried to tell you," Chris said. "Voldemort cast a spell on you to make you insensitive. Piper was the only one who wasn't affected. I'll be able to fix this."

"How?" Piper asked wearily.

"I'll take off the spell. Then you'll have to have a heart-to-heart."

"I'd rather die," I declared.

"Be my guest," Prue grumbled.

The fireplace lit up and Richard appeared. He was holding Paige.

"Paige!"

"How did you do that?" I questioned Piper. She had healed Paige.

"I didn't," Piper responded. "It was the baby."

"The baby? That's pretty weird."

"I think I look younger," Paige said. "Don't you think so?"

"A little," I admitted. "Paige, Prue, Piper, I'm sorry."

"I should be the sorry one," Paige said.

"We were all under a spell," Prue said. "We should just forget about it. We'll get Voldemort for this later. It's late now. We should get some sleep."

"Yeah. It's been a long day." We climbed the stairs and went into our rooms. Bonding sure takes a lot out of you. I turned off the lights and flopped into bed. I was just about to fall asleep when a blue light illuminated the room. "Chris?" I sat up, rubbing my eyes. "Chris, what are you doing in my room?" The figure came into focus. "Whoa!" I leapt out of bed. "How… what… who are you?"

"What kind of a greeting is that?"

He looked like him… but how could it be him? "I must be going crazy. I'm going to close my eyes, and when I open them, you'll be gone." I closed my eyes, then opened them. He was still there. "I'm crazy. You're dead."

"You're not going crazy. I'm a whitelighter now."

"Sirius?" I whispered, hardly daring to believe.

"Yes."

I stared at him. A huge wage of emotions pulled me under. I drowned in all the happiness and disbelief that I was now feeling. I wanted to cry. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to hold him in my arms. Duh. Hold him, you idiot! "Oh, Sirius!" I wrapped my arms around him. Tears flooded my eyes. "I'm so sorry. I should have been there. I love you so much, Sirius. I thought I had lost you."

He kissed my tears away. I couldn't believe it—his soft lips were on my skin again. He was in my arms again. "I'm here now. We can be together again."

"We have so much to talk about."

He smiled. That smile always made me feel weak in the knees.

"Hey, that's not fair! You know that that smile always gets to me." I stroked his cheek. He still had that small amount of stubble. It made him just slightly rugged, and it was another thing that I went wild for. "I've missed you. I was so alone, and…"

"I've missed you, Phoebe. I love you."

We kissed. "Come. Let's talk."

Paige

I yawned and continued to look through my closet. Where did that blue shirt go? Only one place… "Phoebe's room." I went over to her room. She should be up by now. I knocked on the door. "Phoebe?" The knocking was hollow. There was a silencing spell on the room. "Odd," I murmured and opened the door. "Phoebe—oh!" I shut the door quickly. Okay, I must be seeing things. The light was pretty low, and I only glanced at them. That definitely couldn't have been Sirius. The door opened and Phoebe emerged. She was only wearing a long shirt. "Pheebs, I'm sorry, but I didn't know you were with someone…. Eeohmy!" I backed up into the wall.

A man had come out of Phoebe's room. He was wearing only boxers—no guesswork was needed about what they had done. He looked like Sirius. He looked a lot like Sirius. But Sirius was dead.

"Paige, it's me," the-man-who-looked-like-Sirius-but-couldn't-possibly-be-Sirius said.

"But… Sirius… You can't be Sirius… You're dead!"

"That's right."

"But then you would have to be…"

"A whitelighter," he finished. "I didn't achieve my destiny. They had no choice but to make me a whitelighter."

"You, a whitelighter? I never would have expected that." The initial shock was wearing off.

"Hey, it's not that unbelievable," Sirius indignantly said.

Our conversation had woken up everyone else. One by one, the doors opened. That action was followed by a round of gasps.

"Sirius?" everyone said in unison.

He smiled that patented smile. "Yup. I'm a whitelighter."

There was a moment in which everyone just stared at Sirius. Then the scene burst over with action.

"Sirius, I'm so glad to see you," Piper said as she burst into tears.

"I see you're still the same. Always quick to cry."

"And I see you've retained your humor," Prue said and hugged him.

I noted that Remus and Sirius exchanged the usual manly 'was it good? yes it was' look. I laughed a little, and Sirius grinned.

"We should go downstairs and talk," Piper said. She looked at their state and seemed to just barely stop herself from laughing. "Phoebe, Sirius, you two should probably put some pants on."

I had to feel for Harry. He had just met up with beloved godfather again, and Sirius was in his boxers. I briefly wondered if he knew the 'was it good? yes it was' look. Then I got kind of grossed out by that train of thought.

Sirius and Phoebe smiled guiltily and went back into her room. They joined us moments later down in the living room.

"So why did they let you become a whitelighter?" Piper asked.

"Voldemort changed our time path," Sirius explained. "I was supposed to marry Phoebe. It involves a lot of complicated and confusing things."

"Yeah. The Elders don't want us to know much about it," Phoebe said. "They don't want our paths too change any more than they already have."

"Their usual MO."

"Oh, that reminds me. I have some news," Piper said.

"What is it?"

"With all this drama, I forgot to tell you guys that I know exactly what happened. I looked into the time rift." She paused dramatically.

"Well?" I asked anxiously.

"It's a fairly clever plan, I must say. Voldemort first had Wormtail pretend to be Remus, then Sirius. Once Phoebe and I had retreated to the United States, Paige and Prue were forced to follow. That got us out of the way… for a while. Voldemort knew that Phoebe's power could still interfere. It did just that before Lily and James were killed. She saw their deaths. To keep her away from them, Voldemort sent Wormtail to erase her memory of the premonition. That made everything calm."

"Oh God." Phoebe's eyes shone with sadness. "I could have saved them. I could have prevented all this. It's my fault."

"It's Voldemort's fault," Sirius said. "He did all this, and he will pay."

"Still… If I had that vision, it meant that was supposed to save them."

"Not necessarily," I said. "Sometimes people have to die. We've learned that."

"Damn him! He had to screw everything up!" Her body began to glow. Her eyes turned green. "I am not the one you call Melinda," she said in a shadowy voice.

We knew that this was the spirit. "Who are you?"

"I am the past. I am Morrigan, a queen of magic powers. I command the four matriarchal stages…. The mother," she said and pointed to Piper. "The mystic." She pointed at me. "The master." Prue was pointed out. "And the medium. I have chosen you to carry on my power, as I can no longer use it. Find my strength within yourselves, and my powers will be yours." Phoebe's eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped forward. With a few blinks, she was back. "What happened?"

"The spirit spoke through you. We have some research to do."

"Queen Morrigan ruled during the time when magic was just getting organized," Prue said.

"So… we're dealing with a really ancient spirit," I concluded.

"Yup. She's powerful, too. She even had the power of invincibility."

"How'd she die?"

"Natural causes," Prue said. "It was the only thing that could kill her. She devoted her life to fighting evil."

"Just like us."

She nodded. "She predicted that she would one day pass her powers onto her chosen four."

"She chose us?"

"Yes. Now we have even more powers. We can only access them, though, when we're 'in the grips of our greatest emotion'."

"So when we get emotional, we go through that weird change," I said.

"Precisely. In order to fully access our powers, we have to get in touch with our centers."

"Not meditation!" I groaned.

"You act like it's some sort of punishment. It's not. It's meant to be relaxing."

"If we don't work on finding our centers, we'll only be able to access Morrigan's powers by becoming overly emotional. That's not exactly a good thing to try during battle," Piper said.

"Therefore, we must find our centers."

"Mm…." Phoebe murmured. She had been so happy since Sirius had returned.

"I notice that you're engaged again."

"Yup," Phoebe said with a grin. "I just hope that this wedding goes better than my last."

"Don't worry. Your wedding has been blessed by the Elders. I doubt that anything will go wrong."

My sisters looked at me.

"Right."

"Sure."

"Well, we can hope."

The next morning, I walked into a soap opera.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Piper sobbed. "I thought you were different!"

"What did I do?" Remus helplessly asked.

"If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you!" She buried her face in her hands, muffling the rest of her words.

"Piper, please tell me what I did." He placed his hand on her back. She slapped it away.

"Don't even touch me!" she snapped.

"Remus, don't worry. You didn't do anything. She's just feeling emotional," I explained.

"You think you know me?" Piper asked accusingly.

"Well, I've only known you since we were teens," I replied.

She glared at me. "Don't you get smart with me."

"I guess that she's getting emotional instead of nauseous," I said to Remus. "Hormones have to do something. I expect we'll be facing more of this in the future."

"Ow, ow, ow," Phoebe said as she entered the room, clutching her head. "Where is my magical coffee?"

"Magical coffee?"

"It's a special mix that instantly cures a hangover. Ah, here it is."

"Late night?" I asked.

"Yeah." She took a sip of the coffee and immediately became rejuvenated. "That's the good stuff."

"Phoebe, do you think I'm fat?" Piper asked.

"Of course not. You're not even showing yet."

"But I will. Then everyone will treat me like a china doll. I don't want that again!"

"Well, you're not going to be invincible this time," Phoebe said. "This baby is different. Looks like you're going to have more weird adventures with this pregnancy, though. This should be fun."

"Maybe for you. You don't have to actually go through all this. I'm the one who has to go through it."

"Since when do you get all emotional?"

"Since—since… Oh, just leave me alone!" She crossed her arms and stared at Phoebe.

"Okay," Phoebe responded, wisely letting the subject drop. She looked at me.

This is going to be a fun time. I was sure that Phoebe was thinking the same thing.