Disclaimers:
These are obviously not my characters, I'm just borrowing them from Joss Whedon and anyone else who owns them.
If you have issues with people of the same sex loving each other, or live someplace where that's illegal (in which case, consider moving) please move on.
This story takes place during the Buffy episode "Seeing Red" and sometime in the third season of Charmed. That shifts the Charmed timeline up a year, puts the girls closer in age than they should be, and it's before Prue dies, to make things simpler.
Rating: PG
Phoebe Halliwell had no idea why she had the sudden urge to reorganize the books in the attic. They rarely used those books anyway, relying mainly on the Book of Shadows or the advice of the elders. Still, they were having a slight reprieve from demons and warlocks lately, and she felt like she should do something useful. So this morning she planned to look through them and put them in some sort of order.
Phoebe began removing books from the shelves, planning on organizing them and replacing them.
As she removed one book, she was struck with a premonition.
A man shooting a gun as he ran out of a garden.
A woman falling to the ground nearby.
Somewhere else, inside, another woman, this one looking vaguely familiar, shot through the heart and then crumpling to the floor. She was caught by a third woman who tried to rouse her and then, failing, turned her face up and screamed.
Phoebe opened her eyes and looked at the book in her hands.
"What the hell was that? Whose book is this?"
She looked inside the book, Healing Potions and Their Common Uses. On the inside cover was neatly printed 'Maclay.'
"Maclay, Maclay, I know that name. Tara! That was Tara, I knew she looked familiar!" she exclaimed as she realized who the name belonged to.
"Wow, Tara, I haven't thought about her in ages. How can we help her?" She thought as she rushed down the stairs to find her sisters. "And who was that witch who caught her? She had black magic written all over her face."
Tara Maclay was the daughter of one of her gram's friends. When they were younger, Tara and her mother would come into town nearly every weekend. Though Tara was three years younger than Phoebe, the youngest of the Halliwell sisters, they had been close. That is until Tara and her mother had stopped coming when Phoebe was about fifteen. She never found out why. Grams simply said sadly that they probably wouldn't be visiting anymore.
"PRUE! PIPER! LEO!" she yelled as she reached the first floor.
Leo materialized almost immediately in front of her.
"We're in the kitchen Phoebs. What's up?" Prue called from the kitchen.
"A vision, I had a vision, we have to save her, she's going to die!" Phoebe got out as she rushed into the kitchen, followed closely by Leo.
"Slow down, who's going to die?" Piper asked.
"Tara! Tara Maclay, remember her? Well I was cleaning up those old books upstairs and one was hers, well, her mom's probably, but I guess it must be hers now because when I touched it I had a vision of her being killed."
"She was killed? By a warlock, a demon?" Prue asked.
"You were cleaning?" Piper asked incredously.
Phoebe shot her sister a look and ignored that question, answering Prue's instead. "Well...um, not really. She was shot. But I had a vision, that means we are supposed to help her!" Phoebe pleaded. "Oh, and she was caught by this witch who looked like she was about to call on dark magic. The vision ended before I could see what she was going to do but we have to stop it, I can feel it."
"Okay, we can try, calm down. Where was she, could you tell?" Prue was already walking to the other room to get the scrying materials.
"I don't think it was here. I don't know where, it was mostly in a house." She said apologetically.
"If she's a witch then maybe the elders know who she is. I'll go find out." Leo said before orbing out.
"Why don't you get that book, maybe that'll have a clue." Prue suggested.
"Good idea!" She ran up to get it.
"Prue, why would she get a premonition about a shooting?" Piper asked.
"Maybe because we knew her? Maybe because she's a witch? I don't know. Maybe it has less to do with Tara dying and more with what that other girl was going to do." Prue suggested.
Phoebe returned with the book.
"I don't know how this is going to help. It's just about healing potions. We don't even use healing potions." She said glumly.
They paged through the book, Phoebe trying in vain to get another premonition. Finally Leo reappeared.
"The elders have heard of her. She and her girlfriend Willow Rosenberg are both witches. The elders seem a little worried about Willow but they won't say why. They work with Buffy Summers, the vampire slayer, in Sunnydale."
"Girlfriend huh. Well, that must have been Willow I saw doing the black magic then. It fits." Phoebe decided. "Okay, how are we going to find them?"
"How about a phone book?" Prue suggested. "You said it looked like they were in a house, so it's probably where they live."
"Good idea! Let's orb to Sunnydale and find a phone book!" Phoebe grabbed Leo's hand, ready to go.
"Um, Phoebs, shouldn't we have a plan before we go running off to southern cal?" Piper pointed out.
"All we have to do is keep her from being shot. He was just a regular man, he should be no match for us." Phoebe said. "We have to go soon or it may be too late!"
"She does have a point Piper, if you aren't facing a demon it's not like you could look him up in the Book of Shadows or make a potion to vanquish him." Leo added.
Piper scowled. "Okay, let's go then."
The four joined hands and Leo orbed them to Sunnydale.
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"Leo, why are we in the woods?" Prue asked as she looked around her. "They can't live here."
"I didn't know where else we wouldn't be seen. Relax, the edge is just over there. Look, there's a gas station, you can look at the phonebook there."
The group trudged out of the woods and over to the public phones.
Piper sighed in frustration.
"There's no Maclay at all. There are a whole bunch of Rosenbergs but none are Willow. There is a Buffy Summers though, we should go find her and maybe she'll know where they are."
"I'm getting a really bad feeling about this. Leo, can we orb there? I feel like we are running out of time." Phoebe fretted.
"I suppose if she's the slayer she can handle us orbing into her backyard." Leo agreed, leading them around the back of the gas station so nobody would see them disappear.
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The Halliwell sisters and Leo shimmered into Buffy's backyard, finding a young blonde woman and a dark haired man who looked startled at their appearance.
"You think you can just do that to me? That I'd let you get away with it? Think again..." came a voice from behind them.
The sisters whirled to see Warren raising a gun. Acting on instinct Piper thrust out her hands to freeze him. Unfortunately she was still having trouble with her newly evolving powers and he blew up instead.
"Oh shit, I just blew up a human!" She screamed.
The other two people in the yard stared.
"Buffy, who the hell are they?" The man asked.
"I don't know! Who the hell are you?" she asked the sisters.
"Oh good, you are Buffy? This may sound strange...but we came here to save Tara Maclay from being shot. We didn't mean to kill him...did you know him?" Phoebe said.
"Yeah, and don't worry too much about killing him." Buffy grunted.
"Buffy! I know those nerds are a pain but he was human." The man pointed out.
"Xander, they just said if she hadn't done that he was going to shoot Tara! Wait, how did you know that, how do you know Tara's name, and for that matter how and why was he going to shoot her?" Buffy put her hands on her hips. At that moment two young women rushed out of the back door.
"We heard an explosion! What happened! Who are they?" the redhead demanded as they skidded to a stop.
"They just appeared, blew up Warren and the gun he looked like he was going to shoot at me, and now they say they came to save you." Buffy explained.
Phoebe rushed forward. "Tara! I'm so glad we made it in time! Barely too...hey is this Willow? She's cute, nice job Tara!" She hugged Tara and winked while grinning widely at the blond woman who looked stunned and wooden.
"You know her name too!!" Buffy demanded. "What is going on!"
"I'm sorry, we didn't introduce ourselves. I'm Prue, that's Phoebe, and this is Piper. Oh and that's Leo." She pointed them out. Tara's eyes bugged out.
"The H-Halliwells! R-Really! Oh my god you are!" She hugged Phoebe this time.
"You know them?" Willow asked.
"Yes! Well, I knew them. When I was younger. I haven't seen you in what, ten years."
"Back to the why they are here part?" Buffy reminded them.
"Oh yeah. Well, we are witches. The Charmed Ones, if that means anything to you, Tara. Leo says you and Willow are witches, and Buffy's a vampire slayer, so hopefully that doesn't freak you out. Anyway, I get premonitions. Today I was cleaning out old books and when I touched one I saw that guy shooting Buffy and a wild bullet killing you." She decided not to mention what Willow's response had been just now. "It was one of your mother's books, but I guess it's yours now somehow, Tara. Anyway, Leo found out where you were and we came looking for you. Got here just in time too. Warren was here with the gun about to shoot. Piper tried to freeze him but her powers are a little crazy lately and she blew him up instead, which is bad yes but he was a bad guy so hopefully it's ok."
Even Phoebe's sisters were staring at her by the time she finished.
"Well, thank you then. You s-saved my l-life. I can't believe it's r-really you. Wait, you are w-witches too? But mom always said you weren't, I wasn't allowed to talk to you about it." She asked, confused.
"Oh, well...our powers were bound, we didn't know we were, long story." Piper explained half-heartedly.
"Tara, you're sure they are okay?" Buffy asked, still a little creeped out but figuring anyone who got rid of Warren was decent.
"Yes." She nodded, unable to do much else, still in shock.
"Well, then, want to come inside? You want a drink? If you really just saved our lives it's the least we can do." Buffy trusted Tara, and if she said these girls were forces of good, then who was she to argue.
"Sure...that'd be great." Prue answered.
As they walked in the door, Phoebe put her arms around Willow and Tara.
"We need to have a little chat about magic...."
