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Without further delay, we bring you the next piece of the story...

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PART TWENTY-ONE: "Go Get Her!"

Meanwhile outside P3, Phoebe kept looking for the young Halliwell look-alike she had scared so much and was disappointed when she didn't see her. Maybe she'd come later. Phoebe hoped so.

A few people tried to get in with either counterfeit programs or with no programs at all. Thanks to Phoebe's spreadsheet and both Joe and Cole, they didn't succeed. Some even tried bribing the trio, but still had no luck. Joe just kept his arms crossed, insisting, "Private party and you're not on the list."

Around 6:15, Prue showed up to pick up the memories. Her sister smiled sadly. "There's some good ones in there."

Prue nodded. "I'm sure there are. Did you talk to Dad?"

"Yeah, I did," Phoebe's eyes went wide, surprised that Prue had called their father Dad.

"Why?"

"After I introduced the first group, he told me I'd done a good job and in doing so, he called me Prue."

Phoebe grinned. "Guess you can teach an old dog new tricks, huh?"

"Guess you can." Prue returned the smile; then headed back into P3. Dishwalla was just finishing up their set, so she quickly shuffled through the memories and selected a few to read. One was from a childhood friend, one from a classmate, one from a fellow employee at Quake and one from one of Piper's P3 employees -- a well-balanced selection from every stage of Piper's life.

She waited until Dishwalla finished, then returned to the stage. After thanking Dishwalla and asking the crowd to give them another round of applause, she proceeded to read the memories. Some made everyone sniffle, some made them laugh, but they all made them smile, feeling as if Piper was somehow there with them.

Janice Robinson was next up on the billing, and after her introduction, she took the stage to a large round of applause from the crowd. A small smile crept across Prue's face as she leaned against a nearby table and allowed the music to help her drift off into another memory.

Start Flashback (Episode 2.13 Animal Pragmatism)

Cut to inside. Phoebe is dancing with Ethan; Prue and Piper are sitting at the bar.

Prue: You know, I never knew how exhausting not having a job could be.

Piper: Table four needs to be bussed.

Prue: Okay, I'm serious. You know, it's like having a job just sort of made this whole Charmed thing less stressful. It gave me something else to worry about.

Piper: So the Prue of old wins out after all.

Prue: I like being busy.

Piper: And why mess with a good thing?

Prue: Yeah, I just need to find something that I love getting busy at.

Piper: Speaking of gettin' busy, check out our little sister.

(They watch Phoebe dancing with Ethan.)

Prue: Oh, my. Just hope she doesn't do eighties dancing.

End Flashback

As the second and final song of Janice's set came to an end, Prue sorted through more of the remaining memories, reading each one with a wistful look before settling on another mixture of various friends and employees. With a quick check of her watch, she noted that it was almost 7:00, which meant Phoebe should be coming in from check-in duty fairly soon--just in time to catch The Cranberries performance. They were only the fourth of many performers playing that night, including Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, who were the closing act. Faith would still be performing her own previously-arranged concert after that at 9:00--Prue and Phoebe knew their sister would shoot them if they cancelled a sold-out concert--and both were grateful to Faith and Tim for agreeing to do an extra set to close out the celebration of Piper's life.

Sighing softly, Prue stepped up onto the stage to share the next round of memories and introduce The Goo Goo Dolls.

Meanwhile, Phoebe, Cole and Joe were getting ready to lock the doors, so that they could go and be part of the party, too. The back of the program had announced that the doors would close at 7:00, and besides, there hadn't been any new participants in a good half-hour. Phoebe was just beginning to sigh over the fact that the Halliwell look-alike had never showed when she spotted the young woman slowly but surely making her way towards the door, a frightened look on her face.

"Joe," Phoebe whispered. "Any idea who that is?"

"Not sure what her name is; don't know if I ever heard it. But she's been coming to P3 the last month or so, usually with a good-looking guy. Why? Is she not on the list?"

"No, she's not, but she's allowed in anyway," and Joe shrugged as the girl made her way to the trio.

She handed the program to Cole. "I saw the note about the celebration tonight. Piper was really nice to me one night, so I wrote it there. I hope it's okay that I'm here even if I wasn't at the funeral."

Phoebe smiled at her. "Of course it is. I'm sorry I scared you this afternoon and I wish you had stayed for the funeral."

The girl smiled and reached out her hand. "Me, too. I'm truly sorry for your loss."

Phoebe smiled back and took the girl's hand. Immediately she was thrown into a premonition: The young girl is standing on top of a tall building, her eyes closed, dancing to music that only she can hear. In the background is the sound of a clock chiming nine times. Suddenly Kernus appears. Smirking, he throws an energy ball at the girl.

"NO!" Phoebe gasped, terrified, as she came out of the premonition. Seeing Kernus killing a girl who looked so much like Piper scared the tar out of her. She'd also scared the tar out of the girl, who once more had spun on her heels and darted off.

"Phoebe!" cried Joe. "Are you all right?"

"Um, I'm fine, just got a little dizzy for some reason. Uh, Cole, can we go get something to drink?"

Cole nodded and after smiling at Joe, who shut and locked the doors, he led Phoebe down the steps, partially to find something to drink and partially to tell Prue what had happened. As they walked down, Phoebe took the program from Cole and flipped it over. She smiled at the memory, but groaned when she saw that the Halliwell look-alike had forgotten to fill in her name and address. How would they be able to find her and prevent Kernus from killing her?

Even as they were hurrying down the steps, Phoebe frantically looked around, trying to find her big sister in the crowd. Spotting her near the bar, she ran over there. "Prue! Prue! That girl was back and we shook hands and I had a premo--"

"Phoebe!" cried Prue, astounded that her younger sister had almost given away their secret in the midst of this crowd.

Cole also spotted the look one of the other guests was giving Phoebe and gave Phoebe a pitying smile. "She got dizzy while we were checking in the guests. Too much going on for her. Doesn't know what she's saying."

The guest nodded, smiling sympathetically before turning away.

"Prue," Phoebe started anxiously, but Prue grabbed her by the arm and rapidly marched her into the office, closing the door tightly behind them and Cole before turning to glare at her sister.

"What is wrong with you! Are you trying to let all of our guests know that we're witches? Even if these are Piper's friends, we don't want to be outed!"

"But, Prue! That girl! The one who looks like Piper! Kernus is going to kill her around 9:00 tonight if we don't do something about it!"

Prue couldn't believe what she just heard Phoebe say and shot her sister another glare that could melt ice. "And what exactly do you expect us to do, Phoebe? Have you forgotten? We're not the Charmed Ones anymore."

"Prue! This is different! That was Cole!" and Cole rolled his eyes. "This is an innocent! An innocent who looks like Piper! We can't have him kill her on the day we told Piper good-bye!" Phoebe protested, trying desperately to plead her case.

"Excuse me? Phoebe, are you crazy?" Prue tried to stay as calm as she could, but that didn't last long, and 'big sister mode' kicked in. "This..this..this..thing killed Piper and almost killed me and came very close to killing you last night, and now you want us to go up there where we might possibly get attacked again ourselves when we no longer have the Power of Three!"

"I know we don't. But you still have your TK and I still have that spell I found and used the first time and we have Cole. We might not be able to vanquish him, but we can sure scare him away enough to prevent that girl from dying!"

Prue rolled her eyes. "Scare Kernus away?" she scoffed. "Now for sure I know you're crazy."

Cole had remained in the background and quiet during most of this but now he spoke up. "Look, why don't Phoebe and I see if we can find this girl? Then we can try and move her somewhere else. I can always knock her out and shimmer her somewhere safe. We won't try to attack Kernus and then he won't try to attack us. Prue, you know I won't let anything happen to Phoebe."

"Please, Prue!"

Prue tapped her foot impatiently and looked at Phoebe with eyes that were a mixture of both anger and concern. There was just something about Phoebe's whole idea that gave her a bad feeling. But I've gotta hand it to them, they're putting up one heck of a convincing argument.

"I know you won't let anything happen to her, Cole, but there's something about this whole plan that just doesn't set right with me. I mean...is there a back-up for this scheme, or is what you guys have told me all we've got?"

Cole shrugged. "Without the Power of Three, I'm afraid that's all we've got. But it's a lot more than what that innocent has."

Prue sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose as if to ward off an oncoming migraine. Innocent. There's that word again. I guess he's got a point--we can't just let her die, that wouldn't be right. "Fine. I see your point. Power of Three or no, we can't just leave that innocent to die. It goes against everything we stand for, everything Piper died for." She let out a breath she wasn't even aware that she'd been holding. "So as much as I don't like this idea, go ahead and count me in."

Phoebe started describing the scene she'd seen, all set to go off searching, but Prue shook her head. "No, we can't all leave in the middle of the Piper's memorial! The Cranberries will be on soon, and I thought you wanted to read some of the memories."

"I did, but..."

"How do you know that she'll die around 9?"

"Because I could hear a clock tolling in the background."

"Fine, so that means we have until 9, which works because the actual concert starts then. We stay until 8 when the memorial is over and get Joe and the others to take care of the actual concert...they've done it before for Piper."

"But, Prue..."

"Phoebe, we have guests! And they're Piper's guests! We can't just run off!"

"No," Cole agreed. "You can't. But I can shimmer off. I'll go see how many rooftops I can see that look like the one you described, Phoebe, and close enough to a clock that you could hear it bonging. Then as soon as it's all right for us to go, I can shimmer you two there until you find the one you recognize."

Prue nodded, but added, "But not here. The staff will wonder why we don't come out. We'll have to actually leave, and we'll have to move our car."

Cole thought for a second, then his eyes lit up. "I think I've got a compromise. How about I meet you back at the Manor around 8:30? That should give you enough time to get home and us enough time to save that girl."

Phoebe and Prue exchanged a quick look and a nod. Then Phoebe leaned over and hugged her guy. "See, I told you he was worth saving."

Prue rolled her eyes, but reached out and hugged her little sister. "Yeah, I guess maybe he is."

And finally they had a plan they could all agree with.

Cole handed the rest of the memories to Phoebe before he shimmered off, leaving the two sisters alone. As they walked out of the office, The Goo Goo Dolls were just wrapping up their final song of the set. Phoebe tried to give the stack of memories to Prue, but she declined, handing them right back.

"I've got an idea. If you want to, Phoebs, why don't we split the duties for the rest of the evening? I'll take care of the band introductions so that you can read some of the memories--and we can even let Dad do some too if he wants. How's that sound?"

Phoebe paused as she considered the offer and then smiled softly. "Works for me. And I know just which one I'm going to start with too." She sorted through the memories until she found the one from the Halliwell look-alike and placed it on the top of the pile. Then arms linked, the oldest and youngest who were now the older and the younger made their way up to the stage.

And that's how it continued for the next forty-five minutes. Phoebe and Victor alternated reading the memories between the band sets until before the final performance of the memorial celebration, where the sisters and Victor each took a turn reading the last three memories.

Both sisters did their best not to think about the Halliwell look-alike and what they might face later on. Prue continued to worry whether they were doing the right thing, once more facing Kernus, but like Phoebe, she knew they couldn't let an innocent die, especially not one who reminded them so much of Piper.

Faith Hill and Tim McGraw did a fantastic final set which got everyone cheering and helped keep the Halliwell sisters' minds off of the near-future. They even found themselves dancing to the music, something neither planned on doing.

For their last song of the set and the last one of the memorial, Faith and Tim did a duet to the song Faith had sung at the funeral. Just like at the funeral, it brought tears to a lot of eyes and they received a huge ovation from the crowd.

When they finished, Prue returned to the stage to once more thank everyone and let them know that they were all more than welcomed to stay for Faith's concert later that night, but that she hoped that everyone understood why she and Phoebe were going to return home. When she left the stage, everyone she passed told her they understood, even Faith, and to her surprise, even her dad. Joe came up and reassured her and Phoebe that he and the others could handle the crowd for the concert--they'd done it before and would gladly do it again. Both Prue and Phoebe felt a bit bad for this slight deception, but it would allow them to do what they had to do.

No sooner were they back at the Manor than Cole shimmered back in. "I found a bunch of rooftops that look like possibilities."

Phoebe nodded. "Well, then, let's go. It's quarter to 9."

Prue also nodded. "Just remember...as soon as we find her, Cole shimmers the innocent away and then shimmers us home. No confrontations with Kernus if we can at all get away with it!" and both Cole and Phoebe solemnly agreed.

Cole shimmered the two sisters to a number of rooftops with helipads but none of them looked quite right to Phoebe. Finally, shortly before nine, they came to one that felt right, especially when they could see their innocent dancing on top of the roof to a tune of her own, just as a nearby clock began to toll nine.

"Cole," cried Prue. "Go grab her. Now!"

But before Cole could even shimmer out, suddenly Kernus appeared in a swirl of wind. Their innocent screamed in terror as Kernus smirked and waved his hand at them.

Her eyes wide in terror, Prue barked out, "Piper! Freeze 'er!"

But, of course, Piper wasn't there. To their horror, the concussive wave knocked their innocent off of the building! And Kernus actually turned to look at them and smirk at them before whirling out.

"Cole!" screamed Phoebe. "Go get her! Now!" Even as the half-demon shimmered out, both sisters screamed for Leo and this time he came before they screamed his name a second time.

Cole shimmered back in, holding their innocent, gently letting her fall to the ground. "Too late," he muttered. "She already hit the ground."

"Leo!" cried Prue. "Heal! Now!"

But when Leo knelt down next to their innocent and put his hands over her and nothing happened, the sisters' hearts sank. They both knew what had just happened--they had lost an innocent to Kernus on the same day they buried Piper.

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