Saturday, September 14, 2002
Piper picked up the folded parchment and gasped when she recognized her sister's handwriting. "Guys!" she yelled as she scrambled to her feet. Her hand trembled as it clenched the parchment and she again shouted, "Guys, get back up here! Hurry!"
She impatiently paced until Paige entered the attic. "It's about time."
"I barely got down the stairs," Paige complained, "when you yelled. What's going on?"
"Where is she?" Piper asked impatiently as she looked past Paige towards the doorway.
"I'm right here," Prue announced as she joined her sisters. She saw the look on Piper's face and the way Piper's hand was shaking. "Piper? Honey, what is it? Is it the baby?"
"No," Piper answered as she shook her head. She held out the parchment to Prue who took it and looked at it.
"What is it?" Prue asked as she still looked at Piper.
"It was in the trunk," Piper replied. "Underneath the Spirograph box that you just gave Paige."
"So?" Paige wondered aloud.
Prue finally looked down at the writing on the parchment and answered, "It's from Phoebe. For us."
"What do you mean?" Paige asked as she reached for it.
Prue handed it to her and quietly said, "It's addressed to three of us."
Paige stared at the handwriting and wondered, "How'd she know about me? I never got to meet her."
Piper looked at Prue and tearfully asked, "Do you think she had a premonition? That she knew what was going to happen?"
"She would've said something," Prue assured Piper as she shook her head.
"Would she?" Paige murmured before the three sisters fell silent.
Paige stared at the page and finally handed it back to Prue. "You're oldest. You should read it first."
Prue glanced to Piper who nodded her approval. Prue unfolded the page and shrugged in confusion as she told her sisters, "It's just a spell."
Paige quickly set candles in a circle and lit them all. She stepped back and Piper and Prue moved in closer to her. Prue held the paper in front of them and the three chanted,
"Magic forces burning bright,
Grant our wish as we seek the truth and light."
A bright light suddenly filled the room and the sisters shielded their eyes as they turned away.
"Well, it's about time," Phoebe complained as she appeared in the center of the light.
"Phoebe?" Prue called out as she squinted into the light.
"Present," Phoebe responded as she waved her hand. The light surrounding her subsided and she stood in the circle and smiled broadly at her three sisters. "I've been waiting a long time."
"What? How?" Prue and Piper both uttered at the same time as they stared in shock at their transparent sister.
Phoebe laughed and faced her third, silent, sister. "Paige," she quietly greeted. She looked at them all and said, "I've missed all of you so much."
"But you never even met me," Paige shyly commented.
Phoebe shook her head and smiled, "I did. In another time."
"I don't understand," Paige said.
"That makes three of us," Piper told her ghostly sister.
"Why are you here?" Prue asked. "I mean how," she quickly added, "I mean, don't get me wrong, I've missed you so much, Phoebe, but we were told you weren't allowed to see us."
"I've missed you, too, Prue," Phoebe quietly said, "more than you'll ever know."
The three sisters held hands and remained silent while they watched Phoebe.
Piper finally broke the silence when she said, "Uh, Phoebe, the spell? Last yearDid you -- Did you know?"
"Know that I was going to die?" Phoebe asked for her. Piper slowly nodded and Phoebe admitted to her sisters, "Yes, I did." Prue and Piper gasped and Phoebe quickly added, "But it's a bit more complicated."
"Why didn't you tell us?" Piper tearfully asked.
"Tell us now," Paige requested. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"
"Straight to the point," Phoebe commented with a smile. "That's one of the things I always loved about you, Paige. Your straightforwardness." Phoebe turned and indicated to the sofa. "Maybe you guys should sit down." The trio exchanged glances and complied with Phoebe's request. As they sat, Phoebe began to pace within the circle. She tried to come up with the words she thought she'd already had down pat.
"Uh, Pheebs," Piper interrupted as she covered her mouth, "you're getting me dizzy and nauseous."
"Oh," Phoebe uttered as she turned back to her sisters, "sorry. I forgot about your morning sickness. It's justWell, for so long I had it all planned but, now that I'm actually here, I don't know where to begin."
"How about at the beginning?" Prue suggested.
"Well," Phoebe considered, "okay, then, but you have to promise, no interruptions." After her sisters nodded, Phoebe began, "Okay, II diedtoday."
"What're you --" Prue immediately interrupted but broke off when Phoebe glared at her. She shrugged and apologized, "Sorry."
Phoebe's features softened and she smiled at her sister. "You always hated listening to me," she teased before she continued, "But this is the truth. I really died today. I was killed by a demon named Drezdor. He poisoned me in an attempt to destroy the Charmed Ones and become the new Source."
"What?" Prue reacted. "We vanquished the Source and I never heard of a Drezdor. No one's attacked today."
"I know," Phoebe commented in a placating voice, "as I wasI came up with a spell and" Phoebe looked down at the floor and suddenly remembered it all with clarity.
"A spell for what?" Piper asked as she encouraged her sister to continue.
"To set things right," Phoebe quietly answered. The three sisters exchanged glances before they turned to Phoebe for explanation. "I changed history," she whispered as she looked back at them.
"What do you mean?" Prue asked in a shaky voice.
Phoebe locked eyes with her big sister and told her, "I wasn't the one Shax killed last year."
Piper grabbed Prue's hand and asked her younger sister, "What are you talking about?"
"I had gone down with my potion to save Cole," Phoebe calmly recalled, "and found out that you had been exposed to the world as witches." Prue and Piper exchanged glances and nodded their confirmation to Phoebe. "But, Piper, you were killed. So I made a deal with the Source. My loyalty for Tempus's power to reset time. But the Source had no intention of letting me live."
"He sent Shax after you," Paige concluded.
Phoebe shook her head. "Shax came after them. The Source had other plans for me. But he didn't know I knew about his plans because I'd already lived it." She saw the looks of confusion on her sisters' faces and explained, "The deal was that Cole would warn you that you were in danger and prevent you from being hurt. But the Source sent a batch of demons to distract Cole." Phoebe's face suddenly grew sad and her voice trembled as she continued, "By the time we got back here, it wastoo late." She looked at Prue and said, "You were gone."
Piper rested her head on Prue's shoulder as Prue asked in a choked voice, "What happened next?"
Phoebe sighed and summed it up for her sisters, "We met Paige at yourfuneral. Vanquished Shax. Confronted the Source. Andgot on with our lives."
"That's exactly what happened," Paige confirmed in a whisper.
Phoebe nodded, "A lot of what you guys went through is what happened with me." She smiled at Paige, "Like your body-swapping backfire."
"Don't bring that up," Prue groaned, "I was sucking on lollipops for a week after."
"Or being shrunk to three inches," Phoebe offered. "Kinda cool that I did share so much with you guysin a way."
"It's not the same, though," Piper quietly said.
"No, it's not, honey," Phoebe tried to comfort her, "believe me, I know." She looked at her unhappy sisters and smiled, "It's not so bad, you know. I'm at peace. Something I hadn't had for a while beforewell, before Drezdor changed everything."
"Why?" Prue asked. "What happened to you?"
"Other than marrying the love of my life and becoming the Queen of all Evil?" Phoebe asked in return with a mock laugh.
"What?" Piper asked in a scared tone.
"It doesn't matter," Phoebe shook her head with a smile, "not anymore."
"Phoebe," Prue cautiously said, "about Cole. I mean, you were talking about him, weren't you?"
"Of course, I was," Phoebe answered.
Piper looked downcast and said, "Then there's something you should know. About ColeSweetie, he was vanquished a couple of months ago."
"A woman named Emma wanted revenge on Belthazor for killing her fiancé," Paige explained. "She threw the potion at him."
"But you should know," Prue quickly continued, "that you were right about him. In the end, he was helping us. He was good."
"Well, now, maybe hell has frozen over," Cole's voice suddenly announced.
Phoebe rolled her eyes and turned around just as Cole appeared in the circle behind her. "I thought you were Down Under."
Cole shrugged and grinned, "Finished early."
"Always the efficient one," Phoebe proudly stated with a smile.
"Makes me good at what I do," he shrugged with a wink.
"What're you doing here?" Prue interrupted and demanded of Cole.
Cole sighed, "And here I thought you changed your opinion of me." He turned to Phoebe and told her, "Got a job for us."
"Hmmm, friendly kind," Phoebe asked, intrigued, as she gazed back at him, "or nasty kind."
"Maybe a little of both," he promised as he bent his head closer towards hers. But he suddenly pointed his finger at her and admonished, "And what do you think you're doing here? You know they won't like it."
"They," Phoebe commented with a grin, "won't know unless someone tells them."
Cole considered her words. "Wellmaybe if someone made it worth my while to keep a secret."
"Maybe someone will," Phoebe teased.
"Don't you two ever stop," Prue groaned.
"Not even death can stop love," Phoebe answered distractedly as she led Cole out of the circle. They instantly became solid and Phoebe wasted no time in bringing Cole's lips to hers.
After a few moments of watching the pair hungrily go at each other, Paige finally waved her hand in disgust, "All right, get a room, you two."
Phoebe and Cole slightly pulled away from each other and, as Phoebe leaned back against him and held his arms that were wrapped around her, she turned to her sisters in embarrassment. "Sorry, we don't go solid that often."
"Been too long," Cole whispered in her ear, "but that can change with this job." He gave her rear a pinch and smiled at her reaction.
"I love you," she growled as she turned around and pulled him close. But her sisters' coughs interrupted just as she was about to kiss him and she bent her head in embarrassment.
He smiled, kissed the top of her head, and told her, "We'll pick this up later."
"Promises, promises," she grinned knowingly.
"Don't be too long," he warned.
She quickly kissed him again and assured him, "I'll be right there."
Cole acknowledged her sisters with a nod, winked at Phoebe, stepped into the circle and disappeared in a white light.
Phoebe watched him vanish and turned back to her sisters with a smile still on her face. She saw them waiting expectantly and asked, "What?"
"So, what are you?" Paige asked. "Guardian angels?"
"Is it just me or is there something weird about saying Cole and angelin the same sentence?" Prue muttered.
Phoebe laughed pleasantly. "People change," she told her sisters, "even former demonsWe're not guardian angels, exactly. I mean we are ghosts and we --"
"Like Frankie and Lulu?" Piper asked in a worried tone.
"Well, we haven't held up any stores," Phoebe laughed, "but"
"But what?" Prue asked.
"We're ghosts," Phoebe shrugged, "and sometimes we have to be a littleum, convincing, for some of our"charges."" She looked at her sisters' faces and quickly said, "Don't worry. We're good. Really. It's just that sometimes you have to get a littleto convince certain people to move in the right direction. It's okay, we have their approval...most of the time, anyway. Our methods can be, well, a little unorthodox at times."
"You wanna know what I wanna know?" asked Piper with growing annoyance. "Why the hell didn't Leo say something? You've been gone for over a year! Do you have any idea what we went through? How much we missed you?"
Phoebe quickly hugged her sister, "I love you, Piper, and I've missed you so much." Phoebe slowly pulled back and spoke to all her sisters, "Cole and I may not be the most perfect angels they'd like but we do stick to the major rules. WeI, wasn't allowed to see you. I may have found peace but I still had to adjust to beingwell, being dead. I needed time. You needed time."
"What about this Drezdor?" Prue asked. "He hasn't attacked today but if our history is so much like yours"
Phoebe shook her head, "Don't worry about him. Cole took care of him not long after thefuneral."
"Good," Prue said. "I hope it was as painful as he deserved."
"I don't think you'll have to worry that," Phoebe quietly commented. "Cole was extremelyangry."
The sisters fell silent until Paige asked, "So, is it okay now? Can we just call you whenever we want?"
Phoebe hesitated and fidgeted slightly. "Not exactlyLast year, after my spell, well, I thought I might be breaking the rules in leaving you the note but, as it turns out, they would've allowed me to explain all of it to you butit's like this"
"What did you do?" Prue sighed when she recognized Phoebe's tone of voice.
"They," Phoebe began as she glanced upwards, "they put me onwell, I'm sort of on probation." Prue and Piper both groaned and shook their heads while Phoebe quickly continued, "It wasn't my fault. Honest. Well, it was my idea and I guess I sort of did get carried away but Cole and I, well, we'd been on separate jobs and hadn't seen each otherwith each other for -- "
"Phoebe!" Piper exclaimed in shock.
Phoebe continued her excuse and explained in a rush, "Piper, it had been a really long time. A really long time and we were in Venice and there was already this coupleand they had the honeymoon suite and --"
"Oooh, this's getting good," Paige laughed, "in a sick sort of way."
Phoebe glared at her but continued, "No one got hurtwell, that bite mark shouldn't count because it wasn't my fau--"
"No," Prue ordered as she placed her hands over her ears. "No more."
Phoebe stared sheepishly at her sisters, "Sorry." Her smile faded and she told them, "I, uh, I gotta go." Her sisters' smiles quickly faded and they couldn't speak. "I love you guys," Phoebe declared in a hoarse voice.
Prue reacted first and quickly pulled Phoebe into a hug. She held her baby sister tightly and whispered, "I love you, Phoebe, I always have."
"I know," Phoebe whispered in response as she squeezed Prue tight.
"Don't hog the ghost," Piper tried to tease but her tears spilled as Phoebe separated from Prue and stood before Piper. "Phoebe"
Phoebe hugged her hard and told her, "You're going to be a great mommy, Piper, and with any luck, she won't be another me."
"Don't even joke," Piper muttered as she pulled back from Phoebe. "I loved having you as my baby sister."
Phoebe caressed Piper's cheek and wiped away her tears before she turned to Paige. "C'mere, you," she requested as she pulled her younger sister close. "I know you don't know me but I had a year with you and I can't begin to tell you how proud I am of you."
"I wish it'd been different," Paige tearfully commented.
"Me too," Phoebe agreed as she pulled away. "But this is right. You. All of you. The Charmed Ones." Phoebe stepped back into the circle and promised them, "I'll always be with you."
"Phoebe, no, not yet" Piper cried as she stepped forward towards Phoebe.
Prue gently grabbed Piper's arm and stopped her. Paige stepped closer to her two sisters and the three held hands before Phoebe.
Phoebe smiled brightly and repeated, "I'll always be with you. Tell DadLeo. I love you all." Her sisters nodded tearfully and Phoebe, as the bright light enveloped her, bid them, "Blessed be."
The sisters stood together and stared at the empty circle.
"Good-bye, Phoebe," Prue whispered.
Piper hugged Prue. "She's at peace. She's happy, Prue."
Prue nodded, "I know but she's stillgone."
Piper wiped away her big sister's tears, "Not really. Not in the way that really counts."
Prue held Piper's hand and reached for Paige's hand. As she gave each a squeeze, she nodded and stated, "You're right, Piper. Phoebe's still with us. And she always will be."
Just then, Paige's stomach rumbled and she brought her hand to it. "Sorry," she apologized in embarrassment as her older sisters giggled.
Prue tried to control herself and asked, "How bout a sister-bonding-breakfast full of our favorites?"
Piper smiled and agreed, "Suddenly, I'm famished."
The three linked arms and left the attic.
None of the sisters saw the sparkling lights that twinkled brightly in the circle for a moment before they dispersed and faded in a breeze.
And none of the current Charmed Ones heard the faint whisper,
"The Power of Three will set us freeI love you"
the end