Chapter III - Angel Reborn

Piper let out a cry of frustration at the insolence of her sister. As she slammed the telephone back down onto the table in the hallway, she heard another enormous crash from the attic and something that sounded horrifically like the sound of smashing glass.

"Oh give me a break, here!" Piper cried as she stormed up the stairs. She came to a halt outside the attic door and fought against it.

"Phoebe!" she yelled through the thing sheet of wood, rattling at the door with all her strength. "Open this door, right now!"

What had they called her? Strongest witch in all the land? And I can't even open a frigging door! She hammered against the wood one last time with her shoulder. Instantly, a searing arrow of pain shot through her arm, and for a moment, she retreated from the door to nurse her fresh wound of earlier that morning.

"Okay," she said aloud after she had recomposed herself. "Now I'm pissed off."

She fired her hands up and concentrated all her strength onto the oaken door. The door not only flew off its rusty hinges, but shattered into thousands of sharp shards, as if she had just smashed a mirror.

"Thank you," Piper said sweetly, stepping over the threshold. She looked around aghast at her once tidy attic, which was now covered in broken furniture, overturned chairs, strips of paper and one shattered mirror. The wreckage from the door didn't help either. Piper's eyes came to halt on Phoebe. Her poor, beaten looking sister stood alone, her hair tousled and her clothes ripped. A frown wrinkled across Piper's brow, and when she saw that her sister was not hurt, she put her hands on her hips and shook her head in disbelief. She truly was born a mother.

"What the hell happened in here?" she asked, already tallying up in her head the amount of money it would take to fix this mess.

Phoebe coughed, and said in a very strained and broken voice, "My spell backfired."

Piper rushed forward in time to catch her sister as she fell to the floor in a fit of raw despair. Tears streamed down her bruised cheeks, and though she desperately did not want to show just how badly she was coping, now that she had started crying she could not stop. A gaping hole in Phoebe's heart as showing its true colours, and it was all she could do to try and fill it back up with tears.

Piper cradled the sobbing shell of her sister in her arms, rocking her back and forth soothingly.

"Shhhh," she said calmly in her ear, and clung to Phoebe more tightly than a limpet to a rock. When Phoebe had regained enough of herself to change the loud, broken sobbing into the occasional choked cry, Piper spoke.

"What happened?" she asked calmly, stroking back a loose strand of Phoebe's hair.

Phoebe sniffed, and climbed unsteadily to her feet.

"I don't know. One minute I was standing here trying to call for a ghost, and the next, I…"

She trailed off, leaving Piper to only guess what had happened.

"Whose ghost?" she asked curiously, glancing around at the havoc. Phoebe didn't answer, but followed Piper's gaze around the attic.

"Whose ghost?" Piper repeated when Phoebe didn't answer, but with a harsher, sterner tone in her voice. Her eyes darted back to her sister. Phoebe looked up to meet Piper's eye, but before she had time to reply, the attic was filled with amazingly blue-white lights.

"Paige?" Piper asked the mass of orbs.

"No, I'm afraid not," came a male reply. Piper walked to Phoebe's side as the form of an Elder appeared before them. He was younger than most, but his face was etched with the beginnings of wise wrinkles. His eyebrows and beard sported flecks of white, but the eyes he looked at the two Charmed Ones with were as young and fresh as a baby's first laugh.

"But I believe I can answer your question," he said, his smooth voice calming Phoebe down, despite herself. Piper put a defensive arm around her sister's waist.

"I have no questions for you," she said coldly.

The Elder simply looked from one sister to the other. His eyes rested on Piper, who immediately looked away.

"What do you want?" she said through gritted teeth.

The Elder frowned.

"It was Prue."

"What was Prue?" Piper accused, as if the couldn't believe the Elder had dared to say her name.

"The ghost."

Silence spread over the attic like the eerie calm and stillness that occurs before a hurricane.

"What?" she hissed. "You made contact with Prue?" Her eyes swung to Phoebe, who gulped but stood her ground.

"No," Phoebe replied softly. "It didn't work. I wasn't really expecting it to, especially after what happened last – "

"Oh, but you thought you'd try nonetheless!"

"Piper, I – "

"Look, Phoebe," Piper exclaimed, letting go of her. A strange, possessive anger was boiling inside her, and she was finding it difficult to keep control. "Can we talk about this later? I might blow something up if you keep me on this track!"

"Charming," snorted the Elder. "And you wondered why we didn't want you and Leo together."

"Leave Leo out of this!" Piper exclaimed bitterly, rounding on the Elder. "I thought he made it quite clear to you last time exactly how he feels about you. Now if you don't mind, while we're on the subject, I'd like you to send me my husband back; unless you want me to blow up that oversized robe of yours."

The Elder cleared his throat and arched an eyebrow, obviously disgruntled with Piper's distaste.

"Very well," he said, after a brief pause of looking at the sisters. "And then maybe I can get onto the reason why I am actually here."

He shook his head in a disappointed manner.

"It's all right Leo. Feel free to orb back now."

"What? Orb? Leo can't – "

Piper was interrupted by a mass of lights collecting together in the form of her husband. She looked at him, shock spreading from her wide eyes to open mouth.

"Hi Piper," he said hesitantly, not quite sure what reaction to expect from her. She opened and clothed her mouth a few times, not hiding the scowl that creased her forehead.

"We'll talk later," she snapped eventually, then sighed loudly through her nose. The Elder coughed loudly, and all heads swung to him.

"Yes, well, aside from the hiccups you've suffered today, I did actually pay you a visit for a reason," he said with a sneer. Piper's mouth pinched into a thin line.

"What do you want?" she said bitterly, an accusing, hard edge to her voice. It was already a difficult day, and this high-and-mighty Elder wasn't exactly helping.

"I want to help you."

"Of course, because that's what you're so good at."

"Piper..." Leo protested.

She shot her husband a dark look, then returned her gaze to the Elder.

"Look, tell us what you want and then leave us alone."

"There's been a rift in the balance of our magic. We don't know how, and we don't know why. We don't even know whom. But we do know that you are in danger, all of you. Leo too. Unless we can work together to work out what's been going on, you are all at risk of suffering the consequences. Something's changed that was not supposed to change, and destinies have changed because of it. The Grand Design is in jeopardy."

"So... let me get this straight?" Piper said slowly, walking over to the Elder and squaring up to him. "Someone you don't know has done something you can't trace and it's affecting something you don't even know about, and we're the first people you come to?"

"We're not looking for your help, Piper."

"Good. 'Cause I wasn't offering it."

At this point, Phoebe stepped forward. She felt guilty for what she had done without Piper, and she didn't want her to feel like she had to face the world alone.

"Piper's right. You guys lost the right to ask for our help a long time ago."

"Wha..? Phoebe!" Leo interjected. He was shocked at the sister, who was usually reasonably polite. "This is important."

"Leo, if it were so important, they would have told us by now. You of all people should be agreeing with me." Her head swung to the Elder. "You can tell the rest of Them that we don't want to help them anymore. And we don't want your help, either. We can cope well enough on our own."

The Elder did not seem at all surprised with Phoebe's reply. He even nodded his head in agreement.

"Very well," he said. "Let me know if you change your mind."

A trail of white lights surrounded him, and he melted into the surrounding air. Leo turned to look at Phoebe and frowned.

"What did you do that for?" he asked. Phoebe rolled her eyes, pushed passed her brother in law and made her way out of the attic.

"Hey!" Piper shouted after her, following. "We're not done here yet!"

"Yes, Piper, we are," Phoebe sighed, not looking back. She couldn't cope with another interrogation from her sister. She would wait until Piper had calmed down. And as for Leo, she knew that he and Piper had things to talk about.

Phoebe walked into her bedroom, and shut the door behind her before Piper could follow her in. She leant against the hard would, and almost thanked it for holding up her weight. Fighting through the daily battle of being simply alive was proving more difficult than it seemed to be worth. But her peace was cut short.

"Phoebe!" Piper yelled, hammering on the door behind her for the second time that day. "Phoebe, open up this door!"

There was no worry in her voice now. She was purely angry, and anger was what Phoebe didn't need. She needed to relax. She needed to go into her own little world. And, damn it, she needed Prue.

"Phoebe..." Piper whined from the other side of the door, giving up on brute force and resting her forehead against the wood. "Why won't you tell me what's going on?"

There was no answer.

"Have it your way," Piper sighed. She turned and stormed off down into the living room, shaking her head and cursing under her breath. Leo, who was pacing backwards and forwards, turned and smiled gently to her. She looked up with a face like thunder.

"Don't you give me that," she snapped, pushing past him and heading on into the kitchen. "We're still not done yet, either."

"What do you want me to say?" Leo protested, trying to catch her by the arm and failing. "That I didn't want to become a whitelighter again?"

"It might have been a good start!"

Leo lost his patience. His mouth twitched, and he looked to the floor in frustration.

"Fine," he said, shrugging off the feeling of incompleteness he was so familiar to. "Fine."

He orbed out of the house in an angry array of colours, and Piper laughed after him. Where was his nerve? How could he have given up his mortality just like that? She knew better than to let her anger run away with her, but for the time being, it was all she knew how to do. Phoebe was locked in her bedroom. Leo was angry with her, and dealing with it elsewhere. That just left...

"Paige!" Piper yelled at the ceiling. "I know you can me! Get your ass back here before I have to summon you myself!"

Nothing happened.

"Typical," Piper tutted, as she left the kitchen and headed for the attic. "All I need is another demon attack, and my day is complete."

Had she known that Paige was currently dealing with the biggest threat to their Wiccan lives, she may not have been so quick to judge. As it happened, she slammed the attic door shut without giving the door, her sisters or Leo a second thought.