Saving Prue

A/N: A story that was created when I browsing the imdb forums on 'Charmed' and saw a thread about prue being still alive in 2009 only because the 'return back to the past' spell that went hand in hand with the 'move ahead in time' spell was used. So I took that idea and run with it. I hope my story makes sense and that you people like it: D

Chapter 1 – The Dream

Phoebe had begun to feel the heat of the flames on her skin. She screamed in pain, hot tears sliding down her cheeks, her dark eyes locked to those of her sisters. Piper and Prue were huddled together at the other end of the room. They were locked in watching their baby sister burning at the stake.

"Who would have thought that burning witches would begin again in 2009 and it would all be our fault"

Prue was thinking as she squeezed Piper close in her arms. She was trying not to think of how she had failed her promise to her mother and later on to her grandmother that she'd protect the 'babies' with her own life.

Piper had hidden her face in Prue's shoulder and was sobbing. Inside she was cursing the moment they had come in their powers. The smell of burning flesh was revolting and the knowledge that the smell was that of Phoebe made her want to throw up.

Phoebe let out her final scream before the flames engulfed her completely and then, just like that, she found herself falling on her knees. She was alive!

"Prue? Piper?"

She screamed loudly gasping for air. Almost immediately two pairs of arms engulfed her in a practiced motion.

"It's okay, it was only a dream"

Piper rocked her in a motherly tone. Phoebe hid her face in Piper's thick locks breathing deeply.

"What was it? What did you see?"

A softer voice than Prue's asked her. Phoebe muttered something that neither of her sisters heard.

"Do you want to repeat that honey?"

Piper coaxed her. Phoebe sighed and pulled back

"I saw us in the future. When I was burning at the stake. When Prue was alive"

She finished quietly a fresh wave of tears flowing down her cheeks. Piper closed her eyes. The memory was too hard to handle as she shuddered.

Next to them Paige flinched harshly pulling back from their embrace but neither Halliwell sister seemed to notice.

Paige had been woken up harshly by a bad feeling and had immediately orbed back to the manor without a word to her new husband but now she regretted it. She had heard about the time the three sisters had gone to the future and what they had lived then. She also knew that in *that* future, Prue was still alive and that she, Paige, wasn't even a shadow in their lives.

She stood up and quietly left Phoebe's room. Paige Mitchell walked around in the manor that she had lived for the past four years but never felt like home letting her eyes roam free on the earth colored walls. She felt her eyes water as she mentally counted the photos around the house and then divided them in P3 vol 1 (Prue - Piper - Phoebe) and P3 vol 2 (Piper - Phoebe - Paige). She loved her half sisters and she knew they loved her back but it was hard not to flinch when the numbers were clearly in favor of P3 vol 1.

Paige sighed as she took a seat on the wooden staircase that led to the attic, putting her head to rest on her knees. She could still hear Phoebe's soft cries and Piper's words of comfort. Running a hand through her hair she saw a pair of blue eyes tinkling from a picture on the opposite wall.

The sister Paige never knew was sitting on this very same staircase, leaning against the banister casually, her green eyes twinkling and a smirk on her face.

"I know something you don't"

She seemed to be saying. In fact those blue eyes seemed to connect to Paige's brown ones with purpose.

"I may be half asleep still but there's something wrong with that picture"

Paige mused. Prue's eyes seemed to harden slightly and their focus was no longer Paige but the stairwell behind her. Paige shivered slightly as she noticed the moving eyes and opened her mouth to call out for Piper. Then she changed her mind. She was doing pretty well on her own before. With an expression of determination she stood up and walked up the stairs to the attic.

There was only one person that could calm down Phoebe and Piper right now and it sure wasn't Paige. It was time to track down prue and bring her home to console her sisters.

"Hear these words, hear my cries

Spirit from the other side

Come to me, I summon thee

Cross now the great divide"

Nothing. No swirls, no soft air, and most importantly no prue. Paige pursed her lips and scratched her nose.

"I need some help here"

She called out hoping that either Patty or Penny would hear her. One of them must have because the pages of the thick family Book of Shadows began turning on their own accord. Paige waited patiently for them to settle on a page before she called out thanks.

"Return Spell? That's not even close to what I had in mind"

The raven haired witch complained. And yet, deep down, she knew that that was the spell she needed. Walking to the attic's door she listened for Piper and Phoebe and couldn't hear a thing. Resolved that that was what she must do she stood straighter and walked back to the stand where the Book was propped.

"Take me back from whence I came.

To time and place that are the same.

Let past be present, that time regain"

She read clearly. Almost immediately a swirl of white lights engulfed her and then dropped her. She landed on her side roughly

"Ouch"

She moaned and looked around her.

"What the..."

She was in her apartment. The one she lived in until Piper and Phoebe asked her to move in with them a few weeks after Prue died.

"I need to start reading the full page of a spell before casting spells"

She stood quiet for a few moments, letting her mind wrap itself around what she had just done. She felt different, lighter somehow and she knew why. There was no wedding band on her finger. Her hair was all in her eyes and the calendar on the wall was of the opinion that the year was 1999.

"Why did the spell bring me to the past?"

She asked herself before she realized something. She no longer had her witch powers. She got them in 2001, after prue died. She looked down in her hands suddenly nervous.

"I've never even spoken to Prue before"

She bit her bottom lip, a habit she had kicked off ages ago. With another deep breath she looked around the deeply familiar green room as she made up her mind.

She closed her eyes as she pictured the manor and felt the white orbs surround her