So I powered through this and got four final chapters out for you and probably not in the way I intended.

Firstly let me start my dedicating this chapter and this entire story to Shannon Doherty. As Prue she was smart, badass, career driven and should have been in that show from start to finish. Her death is a massive loss to me and to the world and I am sending all my best to her family and friends and I would be remiss if I did not tell you that when writing these final Chapters.

Also there was a Euro's final on tonight, I am English this is being posted after the match, I am fucking gutted. I am gutted full stop writing this so I hope it turned out well. I just turned all my inner ire onto the Elders to be honest.

I love Charmed, I love the fandom, I love the people here who love it as much as I do. But I am going to take a bit of a break after this story and access where I got from there, watching the TV series knowing that Shannon is no longer here is going to be hard enough. So I need to go back to the pad and figure out where we go from here.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.

Please Read and Review.

Let There Be Light

Chapter 22-For The Girls Who Have Everything

In which there is a wedding but a not wedding and Zankou finds out the truth. Penny decides to give him an education in which he finds his mind already made up. AKA a chapter dedicated to the bad asses that are Penny Halliwell and Zankou.

The secret wedding was one thing but when he rocked up with a bottle of cheap booze (he was going to this thing as the eternal rebel and he was most certainly not going to go to this thing as a guest with good booze) he had walked into the what could only be described as carnage.

And not the good kind.

"What happened?"

"The Elders took him" Prue said helping her hysterical sister to her feet.

Bloody hell.

He sat down.

"Zankou"

He did not jump, he was the original demon he did not jump.

He turned.

Oh God.

"Penelope"

"Don't you Penelope me you bastard"

"Glad to see death hasn't softened you"

"What the hell do you think you are doing?"

"Well my plan was to drink but I'm—"

"Never mind this whole being in a relationship with my granddaughter—what the hell were you thinking? Not only is it bad enough that she thinks you love her but—"

"I do love her if that helps"

"It does not because I don't believe you"

"Darling you should know better than most that demons can love"

He had caught her off guard and she turned to look at him.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"I heard stories about the Necromancer."

"That is different—"

"He loved you I would hardly call it different."

"He tried to kill me at the end—"

"I never said he was perfect"

"And he never got me pregnant either you evil shit"

He had just taken a swig of wine when the words hit him and he choked. He didn't know what else to do really, he didn't get reactions like this anymore, one of the perks of being as old as he had, he didn't get reactions…he didn't know what to do when she said that other than to choke. It was so left wing, so unexpected that he didn't know what he was supposed to do.

He turned to see her looking at him with that knowing glance. She had known he suspected that this was complete news to him and rather than feel shame at spoiling her granddaughters news she had decided to tell him for fun…

Penny Halliwell would have made a wonderful demon.

Of course all of this came later…all of this would come later when he was not totally in shock over what she had just told him.

"Beg pardon"

"You heard me"

"I really didn't…"

"She's pregnant you blind moron"

Zankou turned to look at the stairs where Paige had yet to arrive.

"I don't believe you"

Penny shrugged.

"Believe me don't believe it's entirely up to you. but I know she's pregnant and I know she's in love with you and that's a dangerous combination for any witch. Even without her past and she has one"

He stared up at the stairs without seeing.

"I don't—"

She clicked her fingers in front of his eyes and he snapped to look at her hating himself for giving her the instant reaction.

"Listen to me. I don't pretend to understand this relationship anymore than I understood what my daughter was doing both with he mortal and with the angel. I'm a ballbuster and you know that, and I wont say that this is right but your are right when you say it's somewhat Elderly of me to judge considering my own history. So let me say this…I don't know what kind of trauma you have but I know what is going to happen. Right now the Elders are too angry with Leo to realise the shit show that is Paige but at some point they are going to realise that she is pregnant and with a half demon baby and my fear is that then they will have an excuse."

He swallowed and tried to listen. She was saying stuff and it made sense but at the same time he couldn't listen to it. Couldn't get it through his head until she snapped her fingers at him again.

"Listen to me because I wont say this again. I don't know how long I can stay here before they decide that they want me gone…look at me and listen"

Zankou did and this time the words sunk in.

"Paige is the challenge to the world order as they know it. Since the dawn of time there was three sisters to inherit these powers and three alone. The Elders looked at Patty's girls and said this was good, this was the good choice and they thought that they decreed it all, and then comes my daughter who not only has a forth child but has one with her whitelighter which shattered the fragile world that they had created. It was unthinkable and you know that, for witches and whitelighters to be together never mind have babies, now that would be bad enough if Patty had been a normal witch but she wasn't. She was what the Elders thought they had chosen to be the vessel for the Power of Three"

"They thought?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Of course they thought it you stupid man they think they control everything don't they? They thought of my daughter as a vessel—" here voice trembled with a fury that personally Zankou never wanted to be on the receiving end off.

"And they wanted her to be as such. And then she had another baby. By that point the girls had powers, by that point it was decreed who they were and then comes a forth…now you and I both know that prophecies are fluid and Melinda Warren's might not be set in stone but to them? This was a smack in the face, their first step of the magical community wondering if they actually had control over what was happening or not."

Zankou nodded.

"And so there's a forth sister. There's nothing that they can do about that because I bound the girls powers and the Elders knew that they needed those girls in the future. So they make up more rules and try and come for them when Patty died and try to get past me—"

"Pity the fool my dear"

"Thank you" she said with good grace and a wry grin. "But they did take Sam away from his family, they did let my daughter go into that fight vulnerable because they never gave her another whitelighter…it's a mess and perhaps too much of a conspiracy theory even for me but I've had time to think on this until there was nothing left to think about. Paige is a challenge to them. Perhaps not all of them. You and I both know that there are many Elders who view the world differently to the old breed, new kids on the block so to speak who fight for things differently. But Orion, Avgar, Gideon…they like the world the way it is, they like the rules…they don't want a concentrated power in the world that they can't control. So getting over a forth sister, getting over the monumental cock up of getting that prophecy wrong they settle down and make do. And then you come along"

"That wasn't totally intentional"

"Oh please. I know you of old, you don't stick your head above the underworld trench unless you have a reason too, so what was your reason"

He shrugged.

"I got lonely" he said finally. "It's hard for you I know to understand that actually it's a lonely life, and I chose this fair enough but you have to understand that I chose this life for revenge."

"I don't need your life story" Penny Halliwell said with a wave of her hand. "I know it's not a good one, I know enough about you to know that there was something dark and tragic that come with those good looks. I knew that when I first met you remember."

"I never hit on you did I?"

She shot him a look and Zankou raised a hand in surrender.

"You wish" she snapped and then she continued on with her story and this time he knew that she was getting to the crux of it. Her voice was clipped and fast and he knew that this was the time to listen with no interruptions.

"Paige is a challenge to their authority, a threat to the world they built around the Power of Three and now you, you stupid demon has given them an opportunity. You tell me…have many demons managed to have children with witches…not mortals…witches? No. and so you, the second most powerful demon under the Source—don't give me that look—has knocked up the only Charmed One the Elders don't like. Figure out what happens next"

"They separate us from the baby?"

"Or they wipe Paige and the baby from existence"

And here he knew they were at it.

"Oh"

"Yes"

"The Cleaners?"

"You know about them?"

He nodded swallowing another gulp of wine. "I know enough" he said grimly. "I've always thought they worked for us"

She smiled sardonically at that and then.

"You get now why you have to step up"

He nodded. He could see the point that she was going to make. Already they had taken Leo, they had nearly tried to take the human and Zankou had no idea how he had managed to survive. He did not know about Phoebe but he reckoned there was a forbidden love on the horizon for her too.

"Your granddaughters get turned on by forbidden love" he said finally.

"There's a long line of women in this family who do" she said and he smiled briefly at the flicker of pride in her voice.

"I do love her Penny."

"Aha"

"I know you don't believe me"

"I don't…but I am not as tough as I used to be and there is always a chance that I might be disproved. If you'd have told me that there was a possibility that I would be okay with a mortal grandson in law and a whitelighter one I would have smacked you silly. But here we are. I was supposed to be officiating this thing"

"You know they are going to react to it"

"I am counting on it"

"The sisters I mean"

"I know. I want them to. It's time they put their feet in the ground. I might not be a romantic but I will concede that the heart does more than pump blood. And besides…the Elders need taking down a peg"

"Stalemate?"

"For a while, you know what cards to pull. Just make sure there's no real loss of human life"

He nodded.

"I can do that"

"Good"

"Be gentle" she said finally. "For the girls who have everything all they've ever really wanted is to be loved"

For a second he didn't know if he could speak and then he nodded and when he spoke next he was proud of how stable his voice sounded. It was nothing to what was left of his mangled beating heart anyway. He was beginning to sympathise with people who had heart attacks.

"And you? Will they come for you if you're here?"

"They can try" she said and then.

"I have to go. I don't think they know I'm here but I don't want to push it."

She stood up and he stood up two and bowed to her and she scoffed before she disappeared. He'd meant it when he thought it.

Penny Halliwell would have made a wonderful demon.

Paige came down the stairs dressed in her bridesmaid dress and she stared at him.

He found that his hands were shaking as she came to stand in front of him.

So throw a fireball at him. He had not expected this again. When he had lost his boys he had lost his desire for fatherhood.

"She told you didn't she?"

"Afraid so"

She nodded and then.

"I am going to keep it"

"I thought you would"

"Are you mad"

He shook his head and then. "I am worried" he confessed and then he reached out and as gently as he had done with his first baby he touched her belly. "But I am not going anywhere. Where are your sisters?"

"Upstairs."

"Get them. You need to get ready"

"For what?"

He looked at her, looked at her clinically and then…

"For what you have to do next"

"And what's that?"

He blew out a breath.

"The hardest thing imaginable"

And there you go, I make no apologies for hating the Elders. I just...do.

Next Chapter-In which the sisters and the Elders come to the stalemate they all knew was coming. It's ironic that it takes Cole Turner to resolve this.