Disclaimer: I do not own Charmed

A/N sorry, the last two chapters were out of chronological order, but it doesn't really matter which order you read them in.

"Pru? Are you up here?" Andy asked his wife, concern deep in his voice.

Prudence Trudueax, the last of the Charmed Ones, tried to hide her tears. She took a deep breath and answered, "I'm here, Andy," tiredly.

He headed to his wife. Taking her in his arms, he let her rest her head on his shoulder. "You okay?"

"No, Andy. No, I'm not." She stepped back to gaze into his eyes, her own swimming with tears. "How can they expect us to keep fighting? Haven't we lost enough?" She started to pace furiously through the room. "I grew up without my mom," she laughed without humor, "because she died while protecting everyone else. For years, I buried it. The grief, the pain…when I found out how she died, what she was really doing on the lake that day, a part of me was angry with her. She shouldn't have had to fight, she should have refused, and she should have been a mom!" Pru took a shuddering, calming breath. "I learned to deal. I'd followed in mom's footsteps as a kid, taking care of my sisters, helping Gram's. When we found out we were witches, I still followed in my mother's footsteps; fighting the fight, protecting the innocent. Were we so naïve that we didn't consider our own mortality? With our mom's death as evident as it always had been," she asked him rhetorically. "We knew witches die young! And me," she laughed bitterly, "so proud of being super witch… I practically dared death to come for me! But Piper followed mom, first. It should have been ME, Andy. I was the one who followed in mom's footsteps! Piper should be married with children and own a thriving restaurant. Piper only ever really wanted a normal life." She snorted, "Normal! Like any of us had a clue what that is! Hundreds of years of demon fighting in our veins counteracted any normalcy we might have otherwise inherited. When Paige first came, I felt guilty; like I was trying to replace Piper, although I never did see her in Piper's place. Sure, she had Piper's power, but she was so uniquely Paige…" she smiled tearfully, "I grew to really love her, Andy. You know? Even though we weren't raised together I couldn't have possibly loved Paige more if we had. Phoebe," her voice broke on a sob, "killed because we couldn't do something as normal as take her to a hospital. Too many questions …'magic might be exposed'… we let her die, Andy. Phoebe was always so full of life and spirit…" again, Pru tried to slow her breathing. "If it hadn't been for Paige, I don't know how I would have survived. I don't know if it was the witch thing or just a sister thing, they're so combined for us, but Paige and I got so close after Pheebs died that her death hurts the most. I should be used to it, shouldn't I? People die. Each death, I lose more of me…I don't even know what's left," she shook her head sadly, "My sisters all have followed in mom's footsteps now and a part of me is so angry with them all. Why aren't I good enough to walk there too?" Her face crumpled and she sobbed into her husband's arms.

(X)

"Mom, come on!" Pace called excitedly.

"Give your mother a few minutes," Andy advised his son sternly. "God knows, she's earned the right to say goodbye."

Inside the manor Pru walked slowly through the rooms. Selling her ancestral home had devastated her but she still felt numb after Paige's death. She supposed this last pain would hit sooner or later. Better the pain of losing her home than the pain of losing yet another family member. She needed her 'boys'. Andy, Parker, Pace and Palmer were all that she had left. And she would defend them with her last breath.

Her last walkthrough had begun in the attic, she could still see Phoebe lying on the couch, perusing the book now carefully packed away and held by Parker, who waited outside with the other men in her family. They'd respected her need to say goodbye alone and when her goodbyes were done, they would be waiting and she'd no longer be alone.

She headed to the second floor. The bedroom that had been hers, before Piper and Leo wed. Piper had been so thrilled to have the larger room with its own bath. She remembered with a snicker Phoebe walking into the bathroom when Leo was in the shower. She remembered Phoebe finding the pregnancy test and having an incorrect premonition regarding the birth of Piper's demonic child, courtesy of their first vanquished warlock, Jeremy, who had been Piper's fiancée, until he tried to kill the sisters. She looked into the room that had been Paige's. All of her painting supplies long since relegated to the attic because Paige hadn't had time to paint after finding out about her destiny, her duty. She 'saw' Paige sitting on the edge of the bed, hopefulness and insecurity shining from her brown eyes as she asked timidly if she truly belonged here.

Down on the first floor, she walked through the kitchen, which had always been Piper's domain. The kitchen had seemed so lonely since Piper's death. She and Phoebe couldn't bear to be in the kitchen for too long, Piper's missing presence always more apparent in this room. Paige tried to fill Piper's shoes and she remembered when Paige finally gave up and the three sisters had laughingly ordered pizza. 'That's when Paige finally felt that she was one of us, with nothing to prove,' Pru thought to herself. Into the foyer, the large hall that had been the spot where Piper and Leo exchanged their vows. In sickness and in death had been the vow, Leo took it to heart. He'd chosen 'death' to being without Piper. The elders hadn't been happy to lose him as a White-Lighter but they had understood that with Piper gone, Leo was no good for them anymore. His heart had died with Piper, and without a heart, White-Lighters can't heal.

It was here that Marshall had first orbed, informing the sisters that he was their new White-Lighter. Poor Marshall, he'd had to earn their respect and had faced their disobedience and bitterness with good humor. Marshall had actually advised Parker to search for a new home, surprising Pru. As her White-Lighter he should have been convincing her to keep accepting her duty, to keep accepting death. But he had smiled and told Pru that she and her family were done here; there was nothing more they could do.

Into the family room, where the girls had often shared their heartaches and fears. On into the sun room, she saw her sisters everywhere. Funny how she could still see them using her memory, yet, after all these years, she still couldn't summon any of her sisters' spirits to visit the manor. Grams came all the time, sometimes even being corporeal! She sensed Grams with her now, and was suddenly happy that she was no longer alone. Back through the house she headed, to the basement.

She entered the home of the 'Woogyman', she could still see Phoebe's first real battle against the darkness that was within her; the darkness that Phoebe had fought and vanquished repeatedly. She had wanted so much to be good and she was. Perhaps Pheebs was the best of us, because she had such inner demons to face. Being born in the manor, so close to the Nexus had caused poor Phoebe grief all her life. The Nexus, neither inherently good nor evil, was just raw power. Phoebe had had to constantly choose to be good because of the Nexus' influence. The Nexus, the last stop on her tour.

Pru gathered her courage and faced the Nexus. Unsure of what to expect in her new San Francisco, she wanted to prepare.

"Hear now the words of the Witch

The command given this night

Halliwell Magic is invoked here

In this night, at this hour

I call upon the sacred power

My powers, I take with me

As I will so mote it be."

Satisfied, Pru headed back up the stairs, hurried through the kitchen, past the dining room. Glancing one last time at the oft abused grandfather clock, she paused long enough to glamour. Where Prudence Halliwell Trudeaux had once stood, a stranger replaced her. This too felt right to Pru. Let 'Priscilla Bennett' start her new life by being the one to say the final "goodbye" to her old life. Brown hair, blue eyed, petite and pretty, Priscilla gave one last tear filled look to her family home. Squaring her shoulders she hastily brushed her tears away. The time for tears was over, her tears, like so many memories would remain here, in this home. She opened the front door. Pru saw her family gathered on the walk waiting patiently for her, she stepped over the threshold, to them, to her future. She paused long enough to turn around, with a flick of her wrist, she closed the door of her ancestral home for the last time.