Third Time Charmed

A Fight to Remember (Part 3)

That afternoon, Piper opened the front door, only to be greeted by Paige's shoulder as she charged into the house. "Alright, calm down!" she told the girl.

"At least I knocked," she said pointedly.

"Okay, you got me there," Piper agreed with a smirk. Paige was obviously still upset, but it was hard to take her seriously with her hair in Pippi Longstocking-esque braids and while wearing a ruffled pink top Piper wouldn't have been caught dead in. "But to be fair, Prue was the one who—"

"Was the one who what?" Prue enquired, appearing from the kitchen in gym clothes with a towel draped around her neck.

"Uh, nothing."

Paige huffed in annoyance as she headed for the stairs, "I'm not here to talk to either of you. I'm just here to look at the Book of Shadows."

"Really? Well, if you lived here, you could check the book any time you wanted," said Prue.

"Prue..." Piper sighed at her elder sister's tactless approach.

Paige stopped in her tracks and spun on the spot, "Excuse me?"

"Well, err, that's what we came to talk to you about," Piper explained, feeling unprepared. "You know, err, we're tired of getting attacked by demons here and not being able to do anything about it. You'd be safer here, too."

"Right, we're stronger together," Prue agreed, then added, "Besides, it makes sense for you to be around in case you get any more Premonitions about Phoebe. Any you choose to share with us, at least."

Piper felt uneasy.

Paige was stunned. For a moment, she wondered whether she had heard Prue correctly, but comments like this were hardly a surprise coming from someone who had treated her with veiled contempt since they met and who barged into her home yesterday with zero remorse. Prue was arrogant and inconsiderate, and Piper...was just as disappointing. "Are you two out of your freaking minds?" she questioned before stomping up the staircase.

Piper grimaced, then looked to Prue. "Don't people usually storm out of the house when they're angry?" she remarked.

"I don't know," said Prue, turning on her heel, "but I am not in the mood to deal with what can only be described as a teenage tantrum. I'll be downstairs."

Piper let out a deep sigh before heading up to the attic.

***

When Piper got upstairs, she found Paige flipping through the Book of Shadows. She would have liked to tell Prue that her "teenage tantrum" comment was uncalled for, and that Paige had been perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, she was now getting the silent treatment from her, which was hardly an adult way to resolve a disagreement, and certainly wasn't a Halliwell one.

"Really, Paige? You're just going to ignore me?" Piper asked, trying to keep a lid on her temper. She could see where Paige was coming from. The discussion hadn't exactly gone as planned.

Paige didn't even look up from the book.

"Alright, well, when it comes to most things, you can get away with the silent treatment, but when it comes to that book, it concerns all of us."

Letting out a huff of frustration, Paige finally addressed the moving-in question, or part of it. "I understand why you guys are asking me, I do, but I don't want being a witch to take over my life. It's just...too much responsibility," Paige explained evasively. "And if it was that easy for you guys to barge into my room all the way across town, imagine how easy it would be if I actually lived here."

"Fair enough, but can we agree to have a proper discussion about it? How things went downstairs...and at your apartment... That wasn't how we wanted things to go."