FEBRUARY, 2003

SAN FRANCISCO,

THE HALLIWELL ATTIC

The Charmed Ones were a good deal less elated to see their beloved grandmother's spirit than usual. She on the other hand was a good deal more sheepish than usual.

"That should undo it. I really am sorry, dears."

The glares were still present. Hormonal Piper, temporarily stuck with a high-powered unborn and no powers of her own, struck first.

"Anything else? Any other mystical mousetraps meant to lecture three people that we haven't been since before we vanquished Pru's warlock co-workers at the auction house?"

"Piper, it was necessary at the time. Just a tripwire of sorts. If The Three should ever fundamentally disagree about the direction taken by House Haliwell, they should be Three no more."

Phoebe, victim of a few too many random and not so random forces of late, kept on.

"Grams---the disagreement was about the direction of where we should have the new couch brought in--front or back of the house. Now--howzabout you and the powers remove the training wheels? In fact, unless its vital to our ultimate destiny, I'd like us to only be dealing with the morally obvious in terms of losing our powers. Remember, as bad as we got, a lot of what you did was one generation shaking its head at another. We'll do the same, but its got to stop for now. Clear the slate, Ok?"

"Yet, young lady, some might call this generational payback for the Aspirin concession you three had me on."

Paige was perhaps most loathe to upset this woman, but now felt compelled to speak up.

"I wasn't there. I am gonna pay for when Pru was too shrill, Piper didn't care enough about her future, or Phoebe played the two off each other? Maybe that's not even how it was, but Grandma? I've dealt with bad kids and I've seen bad kids up close. You had a handful. But you never had bad kids. Maybe you just confused worthiness for the Three with the up or down of whether the girls you loved were good in and of themselves."

Grams' rolled her eyes.

"The advice-givers' Hell. An unknown grandchild trained as a counselor. All right, I'll see what I can do, generally with the powers, and the restoration spell I made will also negate anything I may have forgotten about. Generational?"

Phoebe shrugged.

"Everyone does it."

She vanished, and Piper got an odd sensation.

"Guys? I think standing up for ourselves with Grams shook something loose. Maybe the dispersed poltergeists were holding something back—in the mail!"

Paige gestured, and the delayed letter appeared. She opened it.

"Miss Piper Haliwell. The claim you filed against the SFPD has been adjudicated in your favor. This court finds that there was no need for power lines to be physically cut during your wedding, that even the pursuit of a possible murderer only necessitated shutting power down via computer by the utility. Enclosed find a state check for the total sum of  Eight-Hundred-Ninety Dollars!"

Phoebe studied the letter.

"A mea culpa from Grams, guilt money from the PD. Gee, if Cole were here, I could beat an apology out of him."

Piper went to speak, but suddenly her 2PM protein drink appeared in her hand. Annoyed, she went for a trifecta of sorts, speaking to her stomach.

"Too many more of those, and someone isn't seeing Disneyland til they're TEN!"

The drink vanished. Piper smiled.

"I guess there are days even Dagwood doesn't trip over the mailman."