Thanks for all the feedback on the prologue. Most of you said to switch between Piper and Patty's POV, so that's what I'll do. OK, on with the story.

Chapter 1 - Busy, Busy, Busy

Piper's POV

I side-stepped the skateboard and ducked the football whizzing through the air. Monday mornings. They were designed to be chaos, weren't they? Especially at our house. But you have to expect that, I guess, with eight magical kids living here. Yes, that's right. I think we all expected to move out, but it never happened. So the boys share a room, and the girls share a room, and everyone gets along great!

Not.

"Holly, you have to tidy your stuff away!" Patty was saying angrily as I walked past their room. "If I trip over anything else of yours I swear I will blow it up!"

"Come on girls, breakfast." I said, making my way towards the stairs. "Ah, ah, ah!" I swung Carson up into the air, and took the felt tip out of his hand. "No drawing on the wall." I told him sternly. That's his new favourite game. Send aunt Piper crazy with pretty pictures on the nice clean walls. And what does Prue do about it? She laughs.

Hopeless.

The kitchen was full of movement, as always. The toaster popping ever few minutes, the fridge and cupboards opening and closing constantly, and squabbling over who ate the last of the coco-pops. Eventually though, they were all seated round the table, eating and talking, calmly for once.

"Are you OK, honey?" I asked Patty. She's been quiet over the last few weeks, and I'm not sure why.

"Yeah, I'm great." She replied, pushed her plate away and walked out of the kitchen. I looked down at the half-empty bowl and sighed. Isn't she a little two young for the moody teenager bit?

"What is wrong with her?" Cassie asked me. I shook my head, and stood up. "Come on kids, you'll be late." Then I walked out too. I found Patty in her room, picking up Holly's stuff and dumping it on her bed.

"Hi." I said carefully.

"Hey." She replied without looking up.

"What you doing?"

"Seeing if there's actually a floor in this part of the room." She replied flatly. "I don't think I've ever seen this area without junk all over it.

"There's definitely a floor there." I told her. "I remember it."

"Mm-hmm." She carried on picking things up and throwing it on Holly's bed, more and more energetically.

"Is everything OK, Tee?" I asked. Tee is what Chris used to call her, when he couldn't pronounce her name, and it caught on.

"Everything is fine." She said stonily.

"Talk to me." I murmured. "Please."

"There's nothing to talk about." She said, finally looking at me. "Really."

"Is it ... about him?" I asked her. She's only ever tried to talk about Dan once, when she was seven. Then she said it didn't matter and ran off. And even though I know I should talk to he about him, it just never happened. I never meant it to be like this, but ...

"No." She said. "There's nothing wrong with me. Really. Don't worry so much."

"Can't help it. It's an automatic thing." I replied. "I ... I'm here if you need me, you know that, right?"

She nodded, then turned back to the mess on the floor.

"Go get ready for school, I'll clean it later." I told her. She let the stuff in her arms fall back down to the floor and walked past me.

What happened to us?

--------------

"You really think it's about Dan?" Phoebe asked, a few hours later at P3. I looked up from the paperwork I was trying to do and nodded.

"What else could it be?"

"Piper ... it could be anything. School stuff, girl stuff, boy trouble, anything. She was only a baby when you were with Dan, it might not have affected her as bad as you think."

"She was five when he died." I stated.

"Right, but other stuff has happened since then. The Cole thing was right after that, and she was pretty badly affected then." Paige added.

Ah, the Cole thing. He went evil, as did Phoebe, then we vanquished him. She got over it, and met Coop the Cupida year or so later.

"Yeah, losing Phoebe was pretty bad for her." I admitted.

"And losing him." Phoebe said. "I mean, he tried to kill her. Her uncle."

"Yeah, but Dan did a lot. And he was her father."

"Don't let her hear you say that." Paige warned.

"Why?"

"Oh. Um ... a few weeks back, when I took her shopping, we ran into Mrs. Benton, remember, she used to live next door when Patty was little? And she mentioned Dan ... Uh, she said "your father". Patty just lost it, started yelling that he isn't her father, Leo is, and Dan doesn't deserve to be called her father and stuff."

"Really? Maybe that's why she's all upset?"

"Because she's realised Leo isn't her real father?" Prue asked confused.

"No, because people are always going to think of him as her father. I need to talk to her."

Great. This should be fun.