Prue came down for breakfast, glad to have the day off though all it did was make her more aware of the dinner date she had with Jason that night.
In her mind she already had her outfit and her makeup picked out. Prue knew the restaurant he had chosen and was well aware of their menu from many business meetings she had with clients while she worked at Bucklands. Many collectors had needed to be wined and dined before agreeing to sell with her, but if Prue was anything she was tenacious.
Grabbing her cup of coffee, she made a mental note to go to the salon today.
"Hey, Piper," she turned her attention to her sister. "How did things go with Leo last night?"
"They didn't. My husband snuck in after I went to bed and when I woke up this morning he was gone." Holding up a sticky note, she held it out to show Prue. "Apparently he went to go work on the renovations at the restaurant but it just feels as if he's avoiding me," the middle sister said sadly. "I don't know how I'm going to tell him."
Prue took her little sister's hand in her own and kissed it. "Everything is going to work out, and if at first you don't succeed then you have me to do your dirty work."
Piper relaxed a little and smiled. "You always make everything better again. Paige did well, too. I'm glad that I decided to give her a chance. I think Phoebe would have really liked her too," she looked down as she tried to gather her composure.
"One day, Piper; one day we'll see her again," Prue said.
Ben walked in and found Leo working on the bathrooms, putting in new tile floors.
"This place looks amazing, Leo. It should be up and running soon."
"Yeah," he wiped sweat from his brow. "There are only a couple more little details to take care of before we can order the tables and supplies but it's going to be a beauty."
"Well, don't mind me. I just came by to set up the office," Ben said and walked away.
Prue didn't know what to do with herself. She had the entire day to herself but all of her work was completed and her sisters were working. Her surroundings were completely silent and she was just reminded of how alone she was.
It wasn't long before she decided to get out of her own mind; literally. After she had almost destroyed Piper and Leo's wedding Prue had decided to make more time for herself and had taken a clue from her astral self; making time for her to be away from her sisters and job by escaping for a little while.
Last night she had been at the lake, today she wanted to visit England and all of a sudden she was outside of the flat she once shared with an ex-boyfriend. Grams had insisted on Prue staying close to home for school, but Prue had been accepted into a study abroad program on scholarship and had taken the chance of Grams killing her when she found out Prue had left the country.
That was the last truly rebellious stunt the eldest Halliwell had pulled while Penny Halliwell was still alive.
Prue had spent an amazing summer in Europe where she had met Eric. It was her first relationship after breaking up with Andy and Prue fell hard, or at least she thought she had before realizing that he was a rebound relationship. He had been a great guy, someone she could have grown old with if she had been able to let go of Andy at the time.
For a couple of hours she got to reminisce; walking through the park right across from their apartment and exploring her old stomping grounds before heading home.
"I'd better be getting back," she said to herself and faded in a golden pool of light.
Paige came home during lunch because she had spilled jelly on her back up shirt and she needed to change. Checking herself in the mirror, she nodded her approval before making her way to the kitchen, just hoping that Piper hadn't gotten rid of the leftovers she planned to scarf down.
Entering the kitchen, Paige found Prue slumped over on the table. "Well, I can't just leave her like that; she'll get a stiff neck."
When calling her name didn't work, Paige shoved Prue. Still unresponsive, Paige tried getting a premonition off of her. Concentrating, she allowed her mind to think of Prue and she saw her.
Prue was kneeling beside her physical form; pounding on her as she yelled, "let me in!"
Standing, she paced until she noticed Paige walk in and watched as she too tried to wake Prue's sleeping form.
"Paige," she tried to get her attention, "Paige, get Piper." Prue just hoped that Paige could hear her. "Something is very wrong. I can't get back in my body and I can't get back into my astral body. I need help," she begged. "Paige; Paige!"
Letting go of the premonition, Paige stared at the spot where she thought Prue was. "We're going to fix this," she said. "I promise," and she looked up before calling, "Leo! Prue's in trouble; bring Piper," and prayed that they could figure this out.
"What do you mean she can't get back into her body," Piper yelled. "What the hell is going on?"
Ben arrived then; Leo had told him about Prue before finding Piper, and Ben had closed up shop before heading to the manor. "How is she?"
"Besides having been evicted from her own body? Just peachy," Paige snapped. "How did this happen?"
"I think I know the answer to that," Ben said. "Prue's been taking some time for herself by astral projecting out of her body. I found her last night and when she got back she told me she'd been doing it for a while."
"That doesn't sound like Prue. Obviously, there's personal gain involved," Piper said.
"It still doesn't explain why she's trapped in the astral plane," Leo said. "This is so unusual. She's stuck in between two states where she is neither inhabiting her physical body or her astral body. Prue's power lies in the fact that she can manifest her physical and astral selves on our plane; essentially pulling her astral body into our plane of existence.
"It's as if in that split second where her astral self merges with her physical form she was trapped and now has no way to enter either body. I'm going to go check with the Elders but you guys need to guard her body and check the book of shadows for any kind of astral being that is known to take over a host. See if there's some way to keep her body unoccupied by anyone else until we know how to put Prue back in it."
"You think someone is trying to get in," Piper asked bewildered.
"It's the most likely scenario and honestly," Leo said, "we'd better hope that's it, because if it's not magical than Prue is the only one who can figure out why she's not able to come back to her body."
"Don't let them put your charges on mute," Paige warned him, thinking back to his last meeting.
"They only muted you guys," Leo replied and orbed out.
"What's he talking about," Piper asked.
"Oh, nothing. Just that he had us on mute when he was in that meeting up there," she gestured up. "What did he mean by Prue being the only one who can know why she's not getting back into her body? Don't you think she'd already have figured out a way to get back in?"
"If it's not a magical reason than it has to be psychological," Piper told her. "Prue has a lot of repressed emotions, and with her ability to escape through her power, it could be that her subconscious is using this as a way to help her figure something out. It's happened before."
Paige looked shocked. "This isn't the first time she's been locked out of her body?"
"No," Piper tried to explain, "Let's just say Prue kind of ruined my wedding because of childhood issues that seemed to pop up. You know, always having to watch out for me and Phoebe instead of looking after herself. It was hard on her."
"You're going to tell me all about that sometime, right," wanting to hear more about how Prue ruined Piper's wedding.
"I'll let her tell you after she gets back. Let's go check out the book and make sure there's nothing else behind this," she said.
On their way through the foyer the bell rang and the sisters looked at each other before Paige wandered over to the door. "May I help you," the brunette asked the stranger at the door.
"I'm Jason Dean. I'm supposed to be picking up Prue for a dinner date," he smiled.
"Uh," Piper stepped forward. "I'm sorry but Prue's in bed sick. She caught something from one of the neighbor kids and I guess she forgot to have one of us call you. We'll tell her that you dropped by."
Jason nodded. "Tell Prue I hope she feels better, and we'll have to reschedule," he said before making his way back to his car.
"He's cute," Piper told Paige, closing the door and heading for the stairs.
"Yeah, she's gonna be sorry she missed this date. Oh, well. They'll be together for a while."
Piper stopped to look at Paige. "How do you know that?"
"I see the future," Paige said. "Duh."
"Did you have a premonition off of Prue or something?"
"No, I just saw it now," Paige told her. "Why?"
"Nothing, I guess your power just works differently than Phoebe's. She always had to touch something first, at least in the beginning. Even later, though, it always pulled her in. I can't seem to tell when you see things, though."
"It's weird," Paige admitted. "It's either just there or I look for it. Like watching the television," she explained. "Either I just see whatever's on or I channel surf."
The sisters made their way up the stairs and Piper was the first one to the book. Flipping it's pages, she looked for demons who wanted to get into Prue's body or keep her out. After searching for ten minutes she slammed the book shut and glanced at the ceiling.
"This is ridiculous, I'm never going to find anything without a little bit of help," she winked at Paige who seemed confused. All of a sudden the book opened and the pages began to flip on their own.
"That always works," Piper grinned and Paige moved next to her to see what the book said.
Phoebe crossed her eyes at her sister. She had taught Piper and Prue that trick. Leaning over the Book of Shadows, she flipped through it until she came to what they needed. "Protect her," she whispered somberly. "Like she always protected us."
"It's a way to protect her body from being invaded," Piper told Paige. "We'll need to cast a circle around her body, and use a personal totem that we can bless to keep out unwanted visitors."
"How do we bless it?"
"With either our hair or blood," she read from the book. "This is good," looking up at Paige. "If we can use hair and blood than we can have all four of us bless the totem."
"How do we do that, I mean, Prue's unconscious and Phoebe isn't here," she reminded her gently.
"It's physical. It draws power from our physical presence; I can use a lock of hair from Phoebe and Prue and we can draw our own blood with my athame. Our very own power of four," Piper said. "But first…"
Piper headed down stairs to Prue's room and began looking through drawers for the totem. "When our mom and dad got married they used these rings. Dad brought one to have Prue appraise and she told me that these rings were made with stones thought to ward against magic," she explained as she tore through Prue's underwear.
"I thought you got mom's ring."
"Her engagement ring, not the wedding ring she replaced it with. Grams gave that to Prue and since the ring already wards off magic, if we bless it—"
"It will be extremely powerful," Paige said. "Oh, and by the way the ring is in the bathroom. Prue hid it in a powder jar so Phoebe wouldn't jack it from her."
Piper stood straight and stared at her. "Yeah," she drew out sardonically, "it's really creepy how you do that. Cool, but creepy."
"Leo thinks that my whitelighter half makes using the power easier. Apparently one or two of the Elders also have the ability to look into the future and that might also be why I inherited that power instead of yours or Prue's."
"Good to know," Piper said digging through the powder jar and shook it off. "We just have to hope that this little baby does the trick. Can you grab the book and meet me downstairs? I think I know exactly how to do this."
Phoebe followed her down the stairs where several of her ancestors stood, waiting. Stepping forward, she completed the circle before realizing what was happening.
She felt her spirit reaching out to her mother and Grams, as well as her aunts and great aunts and great grandmothers in the room. They were one, and they would protect her sisters; their daughters.
Paige orbed Prue onto the dining room table, lying flat and she followed Piper's instructions as they performed the ritual and prepared the circle, all the while unknowing of their presence as the Halliwell witches chanted in unison with their counterparts on the other side.