It's been a few months since I posted anything, but as always, thank you for the warm reviews on my last story (which, incidentally, was my first Charmed fic). This oneshot has actually been in the works for a couple of months now, so it's good to finally be able to say I'm done and get it out there. This one's Prue-centric-my first one and probably my last one for awhile. I don't think I have ever agonized over dialogue this much! But I'm beginning to ramble, so I'll just stop and let you guys read and judge as you will.

Reviews-including constructive criticism-is always welcome. Many thanks.

Spoilers: Set immediately after the season 3 finale, "All Hell Breaks Loose."
Disclaimer: Charmed is the property of Spelling Television and all the wonderful people who made the magic possible. I'm just a fan borrowing the characters and hoping to keep the memory alive.

Into the Light

The pain slammed into her from behind, leaving her breathless and shuddering with the effort to breathe. The last thing she was aware of was the splinters of wood and dust settling over her and the crash of another body beside her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thought she should have been worried, but the worsening chill chased away all rationality. Her breaths were shaky and broken, slowing as surely as her heart slowed.

She felt like she should have been doing something, fighting, but her limbs were leaden and heavy, and her muscles too tired to push and support her. She was dimly aware of a soothing warmth and her body straining to mend itself, but the warmth flickered and died, and her body crashed and burned, too weak to writhe in protest.

Someone was screaming her name over and over and over again. Then she was floating and for a terrible moment she saw everything with perfect clarity. But she didn't believe what she saw and by the time she was ready to believe it, there was nothing at all.

The nothingness gave way to the familiar walls of the Manor, shadowy and unnaturally pale. Empty. Whole. No signs of a battle at all.

"Piper? Phoebe?" Her voice echoed oddly in the increasingly unsettling silence.

Ahead a floor to ceiling portal of light swirled invitingly. Before she could question the wisdom of approaching the portal, the distance to it disappeared and she felt the promise in its pull. Prue stepped in.

There was a dull roar in her ears as she sped forward, forgetting to be wary, feeling impossibly calm. Orbs of light zigzagged agitatedly in front of her, and as she watched, they moved faster and faster until they burst and shot away from each other.

All was still. There was a soft, yet blinding, white glow around everything. The glow was everything. Prue squinted. She had been here before….

Prue. Prue, sweetheart, it's time.

That voice… Feminine and sweet. She knew that voice. Prue stepped forward. Her vision trembled and blurred. A blink and her surroundings snapped back into focus, this time glowing only mildly. And there was Patricia Halliwell, beautiful, dressed in white. Watchful, waiting. Prue felt suddenly cold.

"Mom?"

"Prue." Patty smiled in sad acknowledgement and held out her arms.

Prue accepted the embrace slowly. "What's going on? Why are you here? I don't understand…"

"Oh," Patty pulled back and smiled gently, "I think you do. Why don't you tell me what happened?"

"We were trying to explain the danger to Dr. Griffiths and then Shax… Shax attacked and Phoebe was supposed to find out how to vanquish him but she didn't, no, she wasn't… she wasn't there…"

"Good, that's good." Patty rubbed her back encouragingly. "Go on, sweetheart. What happened next? Phoebe wasn't there…"

"Phoebe wasn't there and Shax… threw me…" She remembered a second, maybe even a third, crash. "Oh my god, Piper! And Phoebe? Is she… are they—?"

"Look at me, Prue, look at me." Patty gripped her arm firmly, her touch warm and cool at the same time. "Your sisters are in shock, but they're fine. Now think, Prue, think about yourself. What happened after Shax threw you?"

"I'm dead, aren't I?"

Patty softened. "I'm sorry, sweetie. I didn't want it to end this way either."

"What do you mean 'end this way'? This is only temporary. Piper and Phoebe are going to find a way to fix this. They have to." When Patty didn't answer, Prue pulled away from her. "Mom?" Her voice shook.

"No, Prue, it's not temporary. I know you and your sisters have come back from this before but not this time."

"But what about Shax and The Source? What about the Power of Three? They need us, all three of us."

"Nonsense, darling." Penny Halliwell materialized in a flurry of lights. "You've paid your dues. This is your destiny now."

"Grams!"

Penny held her gaze. "Everything happens for a reason, Prue."

"I can't just abandon Piper and Phoebe. They can't do this alone; you can't expect them to."

Patty stroked her hair lovingly. "I know this doesn't make sense now, but Grams is right. And I promise you that when your sisters are ready to face The Source, they won't be alone."

The words sank in, meaning too many things at once to make sense, but one implication was clear and it made her cold. "They don't need me anymore, do they?"

"No."

Feeling small and selfish, Prue finally confessed, "I wasn't… I'm not ready to die."

Penny regarded her with genuine sympathy. "No one ever is."

"Can I say goodbye?"

"I think you know the answer to that."

"But I don't understand why."

The two women exchanged wary glances. With growing alarm, Prue watched what seemed to be a silent argument. Growing up, she had always believed that no one could match Grams in a battle of wills, but now she saw that her mother could more than hold her own.

Prue's glance flitted from Patty to Penny and Penny to Patty, her confusion growing. "What is it?"

Patty smiled guardedly but said nothing; she seemed to have grown distant in those few seconds. It was Penny who finally spoke, choosing her words carefully. "Seeing you would keep them in the past and make this less real. They need to move on and accept your death so that they can fulfill their destiny."

"And what is their destiny?" she pressed, her tone bordering curiosity and coldness.

"Enough," Patty interrupted, drawing her arm around Prue protectively. "I know you want answers, sweetheart, and I promise you'll have them but not today. Now," she pulled back and smiled, this time with warmth, "there's someone else who's been waiting to see you."

She turned around and was startled to see that though the three of them had been alone only moments before, there was indeed someone waiting for her, watching her. More than that, she was shocked at who it was.

"Hello, Prue."

"Andy." Forgetting that they had not seen each other in two years and that she had long ago convinced herself that she didn't miss him, she surged forward and threw her arms around his neck. Then, remembering, she drew back, abashed.

He stopped her with a hand on her arm and cupped her face lightly. "You look good," he said seriously.

Prue laughed mirthlessly. "I'm dead."

"Even so." He let his hands fall back to his sides. "Let's walk."

"Walk?"

Andy held out a hand. "Walk."

"Can I? I mean, I just died. I feel like there's something I have to do, some test I have to pass before I can just walk."

Penny snorted. "Honey, you're dead. There is nothing to do. That's the beauty of it. Of course when I died, I still had to keep an eye on you girls. The three of you—"

"Mother!" Patty swatted her arm. "Now is not the time. We're supposed to be making this easier for her."

"Patty, dear, be sensible. She's a Charmed One. This isn't going to be easy whatever way you put it. I raised them to fight, not die."

"Oh don't be dramatic," Patty sighed. "She's doing just fine."

Penny all but rolled her eyes. Instead of arguing, however, she chose to shift her attention back to Prue. "The point is, you can do whatever the hell you want. I mean, of course there are rules—there always are, you understand—but you'll learn them soon enough."

"Go," Patty urged. "Explore your new life and don't think of the ones you left behind. It'll get better." And then she and Penny were waving and mouthing "we love you" before they disappeared into the swirling whiteness.

Andy turned her away gently. "They'll be back."

"Back from what? Grams just told me there is nothing to do."

Andy chuckled, genuinely amused. "There's always more to what a Halliwell woman is saying. You taught me that."

Prue warmed inexplicably at the comment. How strange it was that he made her feel calm and just a little bit jittery all at the same time. She wondered if dying was supposed to feel like this and then she chastised herself for feeling like this at all. She lifted her eyes to meet his, trying to prove something but not knowing what. "How can there be more to nothing?"

"Dying is like starting over. It frees you of everything you left behind. All the things people you expect you to be, all the things you're supposed to do, all the good and the bad memories… you hold on to the pieces you want to keep and the rest are just… there. But they don't matter anymore and they don't have any power over you unless you let them. Whatever they're doing, they're doing because they choose to. If it's important, it's only because they make it important."

Prue's forehead wrinkled in dubious consideration. "It almost sounds too perfect."

"It's not the same as being alive," Andy conceded. "You miss a lot of things, sometimes even the bad ones."

"Do you wish you were still alive?"

"I wish there were things I could have done differently or things I could have done at all, but…" He shrugged. "I don't regret dying because I know it wasn't for nothing. I had to fulfill my destiny so you could fulfill yours. You and your sisters have done a lot of good."

"How do you know that? What if we're bad guys now and that's why I'm here?"

He didn't smile as she had intended, but instead looked into her eyes with unexpected intensity. "I kept my promise, Prue," he said softly. "I've been watching over you. To make sure you were safe. Sometimes just so you wouldn't be alone."

"Andy—"

"You don't have to say anything. I wanted to do it. When I promised you I would always be there for you I meant it."

The conversation petered out and they did end up walking after all. The silence unnerved Prue, making her claustrophobic in her own thoughts. She realized she had missed Andy in the last two years. She had missed that he was familiar and that, in times when she couldn't open up, he knew enough of her to still know her and sometimes understand. Sometimes, sometimes was enough. But above all that she was uncomfortably aware of her now desperate desire to know where they stood.

She didn't know what to say to address that nor did she know if there was any response she could give that would even come close to being as honest as his revelation had been. She only knew that she wished things could have turned out differently and that they were standing here under different circumstances.

"I'm sorry, Andy."

"Prue—"

"I'm not sorry that you did what you did—I'm glad for it. I'm glad you still cared. But I am sorry that you were willing to die so I could live and I didn't believe in you sooner."

He did smile then. "Come on." For the second time, he held out his hand and this time she took it. "I want to show you something."

Puffs of white mist rose lazily all around them, extending as far as they could see. Try as she would, Prue could see nothing else. "How do you know where we're going?"

Andy continued to smile but didn't respond as he pulled her along gently, through the cool mist. It was a short walk and when they stopped, there was nothing to set this spot apart from the spot they had come from. "Ready?"

Prue glanced at him, puzzled. "For what?"

As if triggered by her question, the mist in front of them began to part, rolling aside and thinning to reveal first, a dark, looming shadow, then a swing bench. Their swing bench.

"Oh." Automatically her hand drifted forward and up, hovering. A pleasant warmth buzzed on her skin as the rush of memories came; she lingered especially on the memory of the last time they had been here.

Andy, already sitting on the swing bench, regarded her serenely. "I come here when I want to clear my head or remember the good old days. Puts things in perspective, being here."

"I think I know what you mean." She looked around wonderingly. She hadn't expected to see this place again. That she was was strange, though not in a bad way. She settled into the swing bench and let the slow, comforting rhythm of its rocking lull her into an idyllic calm. She found she couldn't stop staring at Andy, couldn't stop tracing his face in her mind.

She thought she understood now why he had called this—death—starting over. Shax, saving Innocents—it all seemed so long ago. She knew that soon, she would think of it all again, think of what she had left behind, of her sisters, but for now it was so easy to forget, so easy to let go of everything except this place and Andy. She reached across the space between them and touched his face, touched the possibilities of her new destiny. This was reality. Now, tomorrow, forever.