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A Charmed Regeneration
As she walked down the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown, Phoebe had to admit that she was really looking forward to a quiet New Year's Eve tonight.
It might have been a bit of an odd thing to wish for- particularly on the eve of what was almost destined to be the biggest party in the hundred or so years-, but given that she and her sisters had spent most of that time preparing for the worst-case-scenario and worrying about the possibility of discovering some freaky prophecy of destruction about that time of year, it was only natural for her to hope for something quiet, particularly since it was just going to be the three of them.
With Dan taking Jenny back across the country to spend New Year's with her parents- Piper hadn't felt that this was the right time to meet the rest of Dan's family, particularly on such a monumental occasion as the turn of the millennium; it created too many preconceptions about the relationship that Piper didn't feel ready for at this point-, the three sisters were intending to have their own private New Year's Eve party at home before heading over to P3 to celebrate the new millennium in as much style as possible.
Right now, however, Phoebe's only real concern was getting some food for their immediate party at home; anything else they had to deal with at this point could wait. She was currently picking up a few things from Chinatown for a few dishes Piper had acquired from the ghost of one of their first innocents- definitely one of their most interesting, in Phoebe's opinion-, and was just walking past an alleyway near a vegetable stall she'd just visited when someone hurried past her, forcing her into the wall of the building on the right-
A blue box appearing out of thin air in an alleyway-
A man leaving the box and getting shot-
The man on an operating table in a hospital, flat lines on the heart monitor-
Lightning flashing in what looked like a morgue as the man lay on the bed, his features changing-
A new man- no, he was the same man after he had finished changing; he still had the 'John Doe' tag on his toe and was wrapped in a sheet- leaving the morgue, dressing himself in a Victorian-esque coat-
The new man facing a man in a leather coat and sunglasses, the other seemingly 'emitting' evil from every pore of his body-
The two men fighting near what looked like a giant stone eye, the man in leather now dressed in long red-and-black robes-
Earth- the actual planet- seen from orbit, everything being seemingly pulled towards San Francisco like it had become an elaborate plug and the world was the water in the 'bath'-
The world vanishing as the man in the robe laughed above the stone eye, the velvet-clad man lying on the ground behind him, clocks chiming midnight over the laughter as Earth ceased to exist-
Even as the vision ended, Phoebe couldn't keep herself from shaking at what she'd just experienced.
That had easily been the most intensely detailed vision of her life...
And the scale of what she'd seen at the end...
Running down the alleyway she'd just hit the edge of- it was the only explanation she could think of to explain why she'd had that vision now-, Phoebe was almost disappointed when she saw the blue box that she'd seen in her vision standing at the end of a side-alley, surrounded by crime scene tape; if that much was real, it seemed safe to say that what was coming up would have to take priority over any Millennium New Year's Eve celebrations.
Damnit... Phoebe reflected in frustration. So much for any hopes that the Millennium Bug rumours were the least of our worries...
New Year's dinner plans were definitely going to have to wait; if something was going to happen that could cause that kind of damage, she and her sisters really needed to take action fast...
Looking up as her youngest sister entered the manor's kitchen, Piper supposed she shouldn't have been too surprised at the clearly anxious look on her face; given how few bags Phoebe was carrying and how long it had been since she'd left to do the shopping originally, it seemed safe to say that something Charmed-related had come up.
"What's up?" she asked, crossing her fingers in the hope that she might be wrong. "Were the shops out of something, or is it a vision?"
"Vision; quite possibly my biggest one yet," Phoebe replied, slightly breathless as she spoke; evidently a lot of the time that she hadn't been using other forms of transportation had been spent running to get back to the manor. "We need to get to Walker General Hospital fast; somebody there needs our help-"
"Hold on; someone needs our help at a hospital?" Prue asked as she entered the room, looking uncertainly between Piper and Phoebe with a renewed expression of discomfort. "It's just that... well, healing isn't really-"
"He doesn't need us to heal him," Phoebe said, realising even as she spoke that what she had to say was going to sound strange. "He... well, I think he died last night-"
"Oh God, another ghost?" Piper asked, staring upwards in frustration. "Just for once-"
"And I'm pretty sure that he came back to life in a different body," Phoebe finished, enjoying the momentarily stunned expression on Piper and Prue's faces at that last statement.
"Well," Prue said at last, exchanging a brief glance with Piper before she shrugged uncertainly, "that's... different... but is it really-?"
"And if we don't help him out, something's going to happen that will destroy the planet," Phoebe added.
"Hold on; the planet?" Piper interjected, waving an objecting hand at Phoebe. "How does that work?"
"I don't know; I'm more worried about getting to the guy right now to help him stop it before starting to worry about what we're trying to stop!" Phoebe replied, indicating the door with an impatient wave of her hand. "Look, we're talking about the fate of the planet here; are you really going to just... wait and see if I'm right?"
Prue could only sigh at that.
"Point..." she admitted in frustration, before she glanced at her watch with a brief sigh before looking back at Piper and Phoebe. "Well, we'd better get moving; maybe we can sort this out before we get too close to midnight to actually accomplish anything."
"Just let me get one thing from upstairs..." Phoebe said as she ran up the stairs towards the attic, prompting a briefly frustrated glance between Prue and Piper even as they were fairly certain that they knew what Phoebe was after.
As soon as they'd entered the hospital check-in area, Phoebe's eyes instantly fell on the man she'd seen in her vision. He was currently sitting in a chair in the waiting room, dressed in a velvet frock coat of indeterminate colour- it primarily appeared to be green, but it somehow could also be seen as being brown, or even varying shades of blue or purple, depending on how the light hit it-, a waistcoat and a cravat in a silverish colour over a white shirt, and a pair of cream-coloured trousers, although his feet were surprisingly bare.
"Is that him?" Piper asked, looking slightly uncertainly over at Phoebe.
"Yeah, that's the guy," Phoebe confirmed with a nod, her eyes flicking around the hospital before she fell on a red-haired woman in a white medical coat talking with a woman at the reception desk.
"...get SFPD on this?" the woman was saying impatiently. "Some creep's made off with the John Doe that died last night."
"Ew, body snatchers..." the receptionist replied, shuddering slightly at the implications- not that Phoebe could blame her; if she hadn't had a good idea of what incident the doctor was referring to (Their current innocent's unexpected 'resurrection') she'd find the vanishing body disturbing too- before an older man in a suit and glasses walked over.
"Don't call the police just yet, Curtis," he said, before he turned to address the red-haired woman. "Grace, can you give me some time?"
"Time..." the man muttered, standing upwards to stare in confusion between the now-vanishing woman and the clock on the wall as the older man led the woman towards an office.
"Sounds like our guy is attracting a bit too much attention..." Piper said, looking anxiously over at her sisters. "Any way we can deal with that?"
"No worries," Phoebe replied, pulling out a bag and smiling slightly at her sisters. "I grabbed some of Sam's powder before we left; I'll use this to take care of anything those doctors remember about the guy while you two get him out of here, OK?"
Before either of them could say anything about Phoebe's plan, their youngest sister turned and ran in the direction that the doctors had walked earlier, leaving them looking at the man in the velvet coat as he stared at the clock, only to turn to look at them as Prue walked over to place a hand on his arm.
"Hi," Prue said, smiling at the man in what she hoped was a reassuring manner; their current lack of knowledge about this guy didn't exactly help inspire comfort, but if he was involved in saving the world she'd assume the best for the moment. "I'm Prue Halliwell, and this is my sister Piper; we're here to-"
"Piper?" the man muttered, looking at her sister uncertainly as Piper moved around to more directly face the other man, squinting slightly at the younger woman as though trying to recognise her; Prue noted with surprise that he actually had a slightly English accent. "I knew a Piper... she saved a friend of mine... in the Lucifer system..."
"Well, I've never been there, so I'm not that Piper, but trust me; we're here to help you," Piper said, smiling at the man in an awkwardly reassuring manner as she reached out to place an uncertain hand on his arm, the man jolting slightly at the unexpected contact before he seemed to relax as he looked at her.
"You... you know me?" he asked, a slightly hesitant smile on his face.
"We... know of you," Prue said, deciding it was best to avoid making this discussion too complicated as she guided the man towards the door; if his apparent amnesia was genuine- and she had no reason to believe that he was faking it-, that left them with more questions that they needed to answer, so it would be best to get started on finding those answers as soon as possible. "Look, if you'll come with us, we think we can help you work out what happened to you..."
For a moment, the man simply stared silently at them in a contemplative manner as they walked towards the elevator, before he smiled briefly at them.
"Well... it's more than I have right now," the man replied as they entered the elevator and began to descend towards the car park, rubbing the lower left side of his chest uncomfortably. "Besides, it's probably best I get out of here; I think I could use- ARGH!" he yelled, dropping to his knees as he clutched at his chest, wincing in pain as the doors opened onto the car park.
"What the-?" Piper asked, staring at him in confusion as the man pulled his cravat apart and undid the top few buttons of his shirt as he staggered into the car park, collapsing against a nearby car as he pulled his shirt apart to reveal what looked like a small wire sticking out of his chest a couple of inches below the left nipple.
"Oh my God..." Prue whispered, eyes widening in shock as the man pulled the wire out, panting and shaking slightly as the object was removed from his body, revealing a slightly rounder metal tip with a glass circular on its end that even Prue's limited medical knowledge could identify as a camera of some sort.
It might not prove Phoebe's claims that this man had come back from the dead in a new body, but it definitely confirmed that there was more going on here than the obvious problems of the guy not knowing who he was.
"Please..." the man said, staring slightly shakily between them and the wire in his hand. "I have two hearts... you have to get me out of here before they kill me again... help me..."
Two hearts? Prue thought, even as she and Piper took the man's arms and guided him towards their car, taking care to stay out of sight of anyone who might be leaving the hospital; the strange man they'd come here to help would have attracted attention just because of his clothes, never mind the wire he'd just pulled out of himself.
She didn't know what this man was, but the more time she spent with him the more it became clear that he wasn't human; the question remained what he actually was instead...
For a moment as Phoebe approached the door she'd seen the two doctors walking towards earlier- apparently the staffroom, she noted; at least that meant there might not be too many people in there, given how busy hospitals stereotypically were at this time of year-, she hesitated outside the door, but the sound and scent of something burning prompted her to slowly open the door a crack and glance inside the room, allowing her to catch a limited but effective glimpse of the man dropping something that looked like an X-ray into a small bin after lighting it on fire, the woman looking at him in evident shock.
"Am I having a bad dream here?" the woman asked desperately. "I lose a patient, and then I lose his body, and you have just destroyed the only proof that-"
"That you were careless?" the other doctor asked, glancing back at her from his current position near a window.
"No!" the woman yelled back at him, moving to stand more directly in front of him. "That I had no way of knowing-!"
"Stop!" the other doctor said, looking pointedly at Grace as he held up one hand to stop her mid-sentence. "A man died last night because you lost your way-"
"You bet I did!" the woman countered. "You saw the X-ray; the guy had two hearts-!"
"And now," the doctor continued, as calmly as though the woman hadn't interrupted in the first place, "without a body, or without records, no one need know he was even here."
Despite her natural anger at the man's actions- here he was, sweeping a man's death (Even if she was fairly certain that the man they were discussing was the man in her vision) under the table simply to protect his own reputation-, Phoebe couldn't help but feel slightly grateful for it in this instance; at least it meant it would be fairly easy for her to do what she'd come here to do.
Quickly stepping through the door, Phoebe pulled out a handful of Sam's powder before the two people before her could do more than turn to look at her in confusion and blew it in their faces.
"OK," Phoebe said, looking between the two as she spoke quickly, "you'll finish destroying those records you were just talking about, and then you'll both forget all about the guy who died here last night and vanished; as far as you and the rest of the world's concerned, he was never even here in the first place."
With that, she turned around and walked out of the staffroom, leaving the two doctors to stare slightly dazedly after her before they began to respond to her 'instructions'.
One problem down, Phoebe reflected with a slight smile, the smile subsequently fading as her vision flashed across her memory once again.
God only knows what we've got let to tackle now...
AN: For those interested to know, the woman who was arguing about the destruction of the Doctor's records was Grace Holloway, the heart surgeon who was unintentionally responsible for the Seventh Doctor's death; in the original course of events, she went on to help the Eighth Doctor regain his memory and stop the Master's plot, but since that obviously won't be happening here with the Halliwells' involvement I thought it best to settle what happened to her now and then get back to the main plot.