I don't own Charmed. Spoilers for the end of season three and the beginning of season four.

Enjoy.

The Power of Three.

Piper was doing the washing up as slowly as possible, her mind going over the recent events in her head; then again being transformed into some magical monster tended to do that to you (being transformed into a Wendigo had been bad enough, but transformed into a Fury….)

Ever since Prue's sudden death after that mess with Shax, Piper and Phoebe had been left reeling with the death of their sister - after three years of them fighting evil in the form of darklighters, demons, and other magical monstrosities before the last year, where that bitch Alice in that timeline Phoebe had reversed as part of a terrible bargain had shot her (Piper)…. It seemed that at the time, the world and fate wanted one of the Halliwell sisters to die despite all the good they'd done.

Thinking of Alice made her close her eyes…

She could still hear the deranged bitch's hate-filled vitriol while she'd taken a fatal wound, dying...

"I killed a wicked witch! The wicked witch is dead! I killed the wicked witch!"

There were times Piper absolutely loathed being a witch. Unlike her sisters, she'd always had a hard time believing just because they were good people they wouldn't eventually turn evil, or life would just become unbearable. Her commitment as one of the Charmed ones had made it very hard for her to juggle her life, and she knew it affected her sisters although it varied since Prue and Phoebe were more confident than she was. While she hated to think or admit it to herself, never mind Phoebe (and Paige) Piper would have been very happy to abandon magic for a normal life.

And now this...

Ever since she had learnt of that twisted alliance her father had made with those shapeshifter's to steal the Book of Shadows, Piper had wondered if perhaps her dad had a good point - sure, he had come to accept the fact he had more witches in the family like Grams and mum, but now she wondered if perhaps he had a point….

Ah, who was she kidding?

Piper had wanted to give up magic as soon as Prue was gone. What was the point? At the time she'd believed that she and Phoebe were the only members of the Charmed Ones left, and then they'd learnt about Paige…. Learning their mother had had a fling was a shock itself - Piper had asked herself before that idiot detective had blundered into the manor with Darryl, and intruded on the ritual they'd used to summon their deceased mother and grandmother so they could get answers about why the Power of Three remained if one of the main reasons why their parents divorced was because of their mother's fling with a Whitelighter, but she didn't want to know, but finding out they had a half-sibling…

Piper only prayed her mother hadn't wanted to ensure the fucking Power of Three did not activate with her and her sisters, but she liked to think that her mother had been so frustrated and pissed off with their dad they'd had a fling without thinking about the consequences.

But Piper had been so angry lately with everything that had happened; that timeline before it was changed because Phoebe had wanted to make it better although she wondered now if the timeline could have only been possible to change if one of them had died anyway, Prue's disaster of a funeral, the revelation the Power of Three was in effect, her distance from Paige before the nascent witch had stolen the Book of Shadows resulting in her transformation into a Fury before being taken to the cemetery where only then she could shout and scream at the dead Prue, furious with her for leaving her to cope with everything when Prue had been the strong one.

Paige had been a big help.

She had helped Phoebe and Leo in getting her to let it all out, and she had, but now she was no longer angry, Piper sensed a new serious edge to her personality. She didn't know what it would bring for her and for the future, but only time would tell if it would do any good or not. What she was not looking forwards to was fighting more battles against demons.

They were out there, she knew that after three long years of hard, dreadful experience. But at the same time, they had a new sister, and while it was early days, Piper found herself looking forwards to getting to know Paige even if nobody would or could replace Prue.