Hi, so here is another chapter and after doing some work in a new planning book I can confirm this story will take us to end of Season 3 and will now be twenty five chapters. I predict maybe two to three more of Season 1.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.

Please Read and Review.

Let There Be Light

Chapter 8-Formal Reinformed

Prue contemplates telling Andy she is a witch but learns the hard way that the truth might have consequences, Melinda Warren comes back to help her girls but is confused as to why there is a demon there that as it turns out she has...history with...AKA Paige is not the first Halliwell Zankou has danced with.

Prue was not one hundred percent sure she liked being a witch. It was a bit however like being an older sister. She was finding there was very little that she could do when it came to not being one.

Okay…so the powers were…okay…the demon fighting was…okay…ish…and the fact that demons were out there was…manageable. Zankou surprisingly took the edge off. He walked what he called the Thin Dark Line between telling them what they needed to know and chiming in with stories but she found that it was helpful when she had to deal with things that she had never considered before.

Like ghosts.

Yeah…that had been a complete shock.

It wasn't like she trusted him. Prue was beginning to learn that she had an inherit distrust of both demons and men in general but she could accept that he loved her sister. In his own fucked up little way he loved Paige. Certainly when demons came for them they seemed to dodge the youngest Halliwell and instead focus their ire on the other three—though that wasn't what you would call comforting.

The witch thing though…that was a new one. She still couldn't get over it, couldn't get over the fact that her mother had been one, her grandmother, couldn't get over the fact that their father had known about it. And that Andy was not going to be okay about it either.

And really she had nobody to blame for that but herself. It wasn't a secret for everyone to handle…hell her own father had proven that. And really…so Andy had been the first love, she had not expected first loves to be the end love. That was for Paige, her charming, dangerous baby half sister whose first love was the darkest love. That kind of twisted romance belonged to Paige, the child who was literally forged out of unrequited, unacceptable, forbidden love.

So she had learnt the hard way that it wasn't going to work out between her and Andy. There was no reason for her even now weeks later to be waking up heart racing because she was dreaming off him, no reason why she was to be shaking or shivering at the thought of anything happening to him. Just because she knew this world had a new and more potent kind of danger to it, didn't mean that she was ready to face it alone. Deep down she knew she wanted the house and the family.

The ring and the marriage was another thing but the house and the family…yeah she could see herself having that. Soon it would be the twenty first century. Times were changing. You could want the house and the kids and not have the ring on your finger.

So when the truth spell failed…it hurt. It was unsurprising but it hurt. They were in Quake and Phoebe got her a drink and then another and then she turned her car keys over to a surprised Paige.

"Don't crash the car" was all Phoebe said. "We are going to get drunk"

"You know I can get drunk too—"

"Don't flatter yourself kiddo"

Paige pouted. She had gotten control of the orbing thing now so there was no risk of the dishwasher closing setting her off. But Prue knew her older sister was itching to launch something at Phoebe's head.

That night her three sisters got her into bed and she cried herself to sleep.

There was nothing else that could be said.

Not then anyway.

The next day Prue Halliwell received a marvellous shipment (according to Rex) of jewels from back East to catalogue including a locket.

She opened it of course as anyone would do in this situation.

And that was when the next drama kicked off.

"Do you know anything about cursed lockets?"

"Nope"

"How about a warlock called Matthew Tate?"

Zankou was sat in his underground lair cool as you please doing the Chronical crossword. He had taken to doing it in pen because it pleased him too and Paige having finally mastered the art of orbing orbed down to him.

"Don't you have other people to ask about this?"

"No. There's nobody in the house other than Leo and he's just a normal man"

Zankou put down his paper looked her up and down and then smirked.

"Okay" he said and Paige had to concede that she hated when he did that. He always acted whenever Leo or Elders or anything else that they were learning about was mentioned like he was hiding a secret and even the most passionate of sex couldn't distract him from that.

"Matthew Tate? Demon? Heard of him?"

"No. Why?"

"Because he came out of a locket today and attacked Prue and he did some strange thing, had some kind of power where he appeared and re-appeared as if—"

"In the blink of an eye?"

"Yes"

"It's called blinking"

"That's original" she said and she got a smirk in reply.

"It's a common warlock trick."

"Demon"

"No warlock. Warlocks are lower than Demons. Jeremey was a warlock for example, I am a demon, well…I am higher than most demons in the rankings of the underworld but I think you get the picture. Warlocks have limited powers, basics. Blinking is one of them"

She nodded.

"And why does he want Prue?"

"Darling as I have never heard of this man I don't know. But he won't just want Prue, the original prophecy was the Power of Three. I've said it before and I'll say it again take one of you out and the other three will be just as strong"

Paige stared at him and then.

"He knows Melinda Warren"

That, finally got him to put down his pen.

"Oh?"

"Yes. According to him she's the one who put him in there in the first place"

Zankou shrugged.

"Not sure what you want me to say here darling" he said with a wry smile. "Melinda Warren was a powerful witch. If we'd known then about the line that she would have founded I doubt we would have let her live"

"We?"

"The Source. Around that time we were attempting to work together. It didn't pan out. Hence the four hundred ish years of you stop hunting me and I will stop hunting you."

Paige nodded.

"I have to go back up, Phoebe thinks that there might be a way to get answers from the Source—our Source, not yours"

"And who would that be?"

"Melinda Warren herself"

And she was gone before Zankou could look up from his newspaper.

"So your dating…a demon?"

"Yes…well he's…he's a demon whose taken the high road"

Melinda Warren clearly did not know what that meant but she nodded and then turned back to her potion. She sent Prue out to get a feather, Piper and Pheobe to the restaurant to get the ingredients she was missing and Paige to the shop to get some tansy root. She was not sure what worried her the most the fact that one of her ancestors was dating a demon or the fact that one of them could orb.

Even Melinda Warren had heard of the Elders. She was not sure how her great, granddaughter times seven had managed to get away with that one.

"Hello Melinda"

She had been expecting Matthew but…

"Zankou?"

"Hello darling. Good to see you I have to say"

Melinda stared at him for a moment and then recovered herself quickly.

"Are you…the demon that's taken the high road?"

She saw him spell it out in his head and then he shrugged.

"Sure, why not?"

She nodded stirring and then.

"What the hell—pardon the pun—are you doing with Paige? I don't…you didn't…is this just sex for you?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"Well wasn't it just sex for us?"

He sighed and she knew she had him on the ropes. The thing was…well…she was hardly one to judge was she? Zankou had been the first demon that she had met and he had been her prelude to Matthew.

"I don't know what to say to that" she said finally. "Your courting my great granddaughter—give or take eight generations"

He shrugged. "Make me feel old why don't you darling…and this time it's different"

"How do you know that?"

"Because it is, that's why"

There was a pause and it was clear that he didn't want to elaborate about it. Zankou had been bloody cryptic back when he had, had her up against the back wall of the tavern he was even more so now.

"So" he said finally. "Your going to trap the fucker back into the locket?"

"Yes."

"I'd offer to help but I have a line you know"

"Still following that one are you?"

"Yes. Even the whitelighter believes it. That or he's been ordered not to poke the demon."

Melinda put down her spoon.

"More than likely the second one" she said watching her potion thicken and bubble. "They must be hoping that the sisters change their mind, that Pagie will vanquish you."

"Of that I have no doubt. I expect at some point there will pressure but what can they do? I am not a whitelighter that can be ordered away, they cannot send the Cleaners after me because I am immortal, all powerful and I was here before the Cleaners and they know that, they cannot take Paige out of the equation—if they could I think they would have done that when she was born—so they are stuck trying to find an option."

She smiled. She had never liked the Elders. She had dealt with one, a female with blonde hair who had reminded her of a puritan nun she had once met and she had never warmed to the idea of them. She had been a free speaking witch who'd done well enough alone even at the end. She'd made the choice for her daughter. She was not taking that back because some twit with bright lights attached to her had told her that it was part of the grand design. She had chosen her path. She had chosen the men she had invited to her bed. She was a free thinking woman…for a time like Salem. She was not going to be pressured into making any choice she did not want to.

"Are you in love?"

"Darling come on do you think I love?"

"Depends. You did moan a woman's name when you were with me once"

He shot her a look.

"Are you going to tell Paige that we…hooked up?"

"What?"

"Had sex Melinda…that's what the young call it these days. Hooked up"

Melinda scrunched her nose up. She did not think that she liked the sound of that very much. But then again she did not know what to think of this strange new time. Certainly she did not know what to think of the strange appliances in the kitchen including one that popped bread out.

"No" she said finally. "I don't trust you—"

"Melinda I would be insulted if you did"

"But I know you well enough to know that you don't serve the Source."

And she did. When she had known Zankou she had been a single mother to a daughter and he had come in and broken the Church and it's stigma into a million pieces. He had exposed two demons for her to vanquish who had been tempting little girls and then he had killed the village elder and his wife which had allowed her to enter the community more formally. It had worked well. She had gotten her demons. He had…well…she supposed he had gotten something out of it though even now she was not sure what. Unless you knew Zankou then you didn't know him…

If that made sense.

"They are good girls, good strong witches"

"Took it well enough."

"Have my girls—"

"Tough strong woman" he said knowing what she wanted to hear. "All of them. Have left them alone like I said I would. I didn't go looking for Paige"

She nodded.

"And Matthew?"

"Oh make him pay darling, make him pay"

She smiled.

"I think that went rather well?"

"Piper"

"What? We got rid of Matthew, sent Melinda back to her own time…we did all that we needed to do"

"I know" Prue heaved the Book closed and then. "I don't trust Paige's boyfriend" There she thought to herself she had said it out loud what she had been thinking for months.

"Oh Prue…he's a demon. No one trusts him."

"I just…there's something missing here that I don't see. Something…I don't know…I know you have Leo and I know that Phoebe has…well no issue with men whatsoever but…but…it cannot be this easy right? I just…why do I think that there is a line that we are crossing?"

Piper shrugged over her glass of wine. "Because you are the big sister and you want us all to be happy?" she offered. "And we are. Mostly. Paige is happy, Zankou has not tried to kill us, I don't think she is under a spell from him either. He…he doesn't bother us and we don't bother him like he promised."

"But why does it not feel right?"

"Because your Prue and I'm Piper and we don't do bad boys. That's Paige and Phoebe's department. Were gonna make the sensible choices. They're going to make the marriages that will shake this family to the core…again"

Prue conceded that part was right. Unbidden again she thought about Andy. Was a mortal in the family so bad?

Piper smiled as Leo walked in. Prue had to admit she saw what her sister saw in him and it was sweet to see her light up like that. She couldn't remember the last time that Piper had looked at anyone like that.

Come to think of it she couldn't remember the last time Phoebe had looked like that.

How was it that their baby sister had gotten her shit together so perfectly and her older three sisters were struggling?

She really did need to speak to Paige about going back to college. And Phoebe about a job. A healthy balance between defeating demons and sleeping with them.

The thought made her want to laugh and so she took another sip of wine.

Her instincts weren't wrong and she knew her eye casting over Leo hugging her sister that something was around the corner next. But she didn't think that right now was the time to bum everyone out with it.

Not when everyone was getting some kind of happiness.

Again she thought of Andy and she downed her wine in three gulps.

Everyone but her it seemed.

And there you go, hope you enjoyed.

Next Chapter-As Andy grows increasingly suspicious the sisters must deal with Rex, Hannah, a wendigo and Leo...who is...something...as Phoebe one day discovers.