Who: Phoebe Halliwell, Prue Halliwell, & Leo Wyatt What: Phoebe's arrival When: Backdated to the start of the End!Plot Where: A city Rating: Fairly low Status: Complete; Gdoc (FTW!)
This made no sense whatsoever....but then things rarely did, since she’d first been brought to Lawrence. As she walked along the street, staying near a building, she searched with her eyes and her mind for someone nearby. Whenever she sensed someone who seemed to be way too full of rage, she moved in the opposite direction. Just what the hell had the seal done? Why had she been catapulted into the future?
“Leo?” She called out quietly, not wanting to shout, but hoping that he might somehow be alive and still there. If this was even the same world, that is. “Leo!” A little louder this time. She felt a different ball of emotions then, not the same mindless rage she’d been sensing off and on, and she stopped calling for her brother-in-law, and ducked down behind a car that was turned over. A few minutes later, she peeked out carefully as she heard footsteps. The feelings were vaguely familiar, like they came from someone she knew, and she focused on the figure as they arrived. It was hard to tell, since it was nighttime, but as the person got closer, a smile broke out on Phoebe’s face.
She stood and moved into the street, for the moment ignoring what she was feeling from the woman, because now she knew exactly who it was. “Prue, hey! Any idea what’s going on here?”
---
The world had changed, and so had Prue. Everything had gone to Hell in a hand basket, and while she should have cared, she didn’t. The losses of her child and Phoebe had proved to be too much for her to take. Instead of dealing with it like most people should, Prue just shut down on herself and became a cold, difficult person. She’d only listen to Damien and Leo, though she still tended to give them both untold amounts of trouble if she wasn’t in the mood to take their crap.
Needing to get out and get some fresh air, Prue had gone for a walk. As always, she was on high alert for any sign of trouble. She abruptly came to a halt when she saw movement in front of her, taking a defensive stance. But the moment she heard the voice, she refrained herself from telekinetically throwing the person aside. But only for that moment. The first thought that popped into her mind was a trick by the enemy. After all, Phoebe was dead, she couldn’t possibly be standing there in front of her.
“Who are you?” Prue demanded, convinced there was a trick being played on her. She kept glancing around, as though she expected an ambush and they were using an image of Phoebe as bait.
---
Phoebe felt her sister go on the defense, magically, and prepped herself in case she had to levitate or strike back somehow. Sometimes defensive powers sucked majorly. She held up her hands to show that she wasn’t holding any weapons and gave her a small, reassuring smile.
“It’s me, Prue. I don’t know how this happened, but...well, it’s not the first time I’ve traveled through time. An hour ago you and I were sitting in my apartment eating ice cream while Leo tried to cheer me up, in 2010. Now I’m here. Wherever here....is.” She glanced around, then looked at her sister again. “So...want to tell me what’s going on here? What happened to everyone?” What happened to you? is what she really wanted to ask, but she wouldn’t just yet.
---
Prue narrowed her eyes, looking Phoebe over carefully. The woman definitely looked and sounded like her sister, but she wasn’t going to fall for this so quickly. She knew demons liked to trick, and who knew what that Pandora was capable of. She clenched her teeth, but still refrained from using her powers.
“2010? Are you serious?” Prue gave a cold, humorless laugh at that. “Nice try. It’s 2015 and if you think you’re going to use my sister’s image to get to me too, you’ve got another thing coming. So come on, who are you? Demon? Pandora?” It was clear Prue was going to need proof that this was actually Phoebe. The brunette witch, on appearance and feeling alone, had very little in common with the Prue Phoebe knew. Prue was dressed all in black, leather pants, tight top. Her hair was shorter, an angular cut just above her shoulders adding to her stark appearance and personality.
---
Phoebe swallowed hard at the fact that her sister wasn’t swayed, and she thought quickly to come up with something that would convince Prue of who she was. “Yeah, I’m serious...and I know it’s 2015. I’ve been pulled to the future somehow. I’m not a demon.” She slowly raised a hand to pull her anti-possession charm out from under the edge of her shirt. “See? And I don’t know who Pandora is.”
Huffing out a sigh, she went on. “Okay.When I was nine and it was the first day of school, I came home upset because an older girl made fun of the skirt Grams had bought me. You took it and jazzed it up with studs and a beadazzler, and the next time I wore it the girl wanted to know where I had gotten it. You were my favorite sister for like...a month.” Her eyes watched Prue’s carefully, looking for some change in her demeanor. “A year after we became the Charmed Ones, Piper went on a trip while you and I stayed behind. We had to learn how to work together to stop a demon, even though I really pissed you off. Which I used to do a lot. Do you need me to go on?”
---
The anti-possession charm was persuading evidence that Phoebe wasn’t a demon. So that ruled that out, but she still needed to know whether it was actually Phoebe. As she spoke about the skirt and having to work together to fight off a demon, Prue unclenched her fists, but only slightly. She lowered her arms, still looking at Phoebe a bit skeptically. “All right. No, I don’t think you need to go on.”
She took a deep breath. “So you really have no idea what’s happened the last five years?” Prue really didn’t want to travel back down that road. And while there was a twinge of deep sorrow, she quickly smothered it with her icy rage, like she had been doing the past few years.
---
She dropped her hands back to her sides and started towards Prue. “No...but I guess I missed the apocalypse?” She glanced around at the totaled city, then back to her sister. “Did it happen? What exactly did happen?” One of her hands ran through her hair absently, just barely noticing that it had started growing out again since she’d been brought through the seal. It had almost been a year, as a matter of fact.
Speaking of hair...she raised a hand towards Prue and fingered the ends of her hair absently, then took a closer look at what she was wearing. “And what’s with the dominatrix look? Trying for the Matrix look or something?”
---
Prue resisted grabbing Phoebe’s hand and pulling it away from her hair, which was her first instinct. The past three years had been especially difficult, and about the only person she let close enough to touch her was Damien. And sometimes Leo. She rolled her eyes at the dominatrix look comment. “You got a problem with it?”
“A lot has happened. Lucifer is behind it all, as you can see. There was a virus released that turned people into Croats. Basically zombies. There aren’t many of us left alive. Millions of people have died, and those of us left alive are in small refugee-type camps. And as for my clothes, it goes with the times.” Prue delivered the explanation with a somewhat cold detachment. She couldn’t afford to get all emotional. If she let emotions get the better of her, she’d be weak, and she needed to be strong if she wished to continue to survive.
---
“It’s just that black leather really isn’t your style.” This was making Phoebe really uncomfortable. Prue wasn’t acting very much like the sister she remembered - in fact, she was acting more like the darker versions of herself they had encountered over their three years as Charmed ones.
“A virus? Wait...the zombies. That’s what that Chuck guy was talking about last night?” She frowned - why would she be brought here from that specific point in time? Was this even real...or was it some sort of weird living premonition? Shaking the thought aside, she refocused on her sister. “Refugee camps? Is...the people from the complex, are they still alive? And Leo? Is he here?” She hesitated, then took a deep breath and continued. “And where am I? You looked kind of surprised to see me.”
---
“Well it is now.” Prue crossed her arms over her chest and glanced around again. One could never be too careful in these times. Danger lurked around every corner, and while Prue wasn’t fighting to save the world, she didn’t exactly want to end up dead. Or maybe she did. She didn’t really know what she wanted anymore.
Prue merely nodded about the zombies. “Most of them are, but some have died over the years. Leo’s still here. He doesn’t really go very far from me anymore.” Much to her dislike sometimes. When Phoebe asked about her own whereabouts, Prue took a deep breath. As much as she didn’t want to say it, she didn’t really have the tact to break the news gently anymore. Best to just rip the band aid off all at once. “You died three years ago. You were infected by the virus, but you were killed by Pandora.” The rage inside her started to boil again simply by uttering Pandora’s name. “Leo didn’t make it to you in time. I broke all the Wiccan rules to try and get you back. But...none of them worked.” The look Prue gave Phoebe wasn’t as harsh and empty as it had been moments before. There was a flicker of pain within her eyes. She did miss Phoebe, and it still hurt her to think about the day that she’d given up on being good and just went into survival mode.
---
She gave a nod when Prue said Leo was still around, inwardly relieved. Hopefully he’d be happy to see her, at least. When she heard about what had happened to her, Phoebe’s eyes widened a little, before she stepped forward and pulled Prue into a tight hug. “Oh sweetie...I’m so sorry you had to go for that.” She could sense the emotions shifting, and felt the pain within her sister. If Prue tried to break away, Phoebe was not going to let her.
“I understand how you feel, and why you’d...why you’d do that.” Piper had tried to do the same, after Prue’s death. She took a deep breath and tightened her arms. “I’m so sorry, Prue. But I’m here now, okay? And as long as I have any power over it, I’m not going anywhere, okay?”
---
When Phoebe pulled her into a hug, Prue froze up. She closed her eyes and tried to pull away. “No, I’m fine. Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me!” She didn’t exactly take to physical contact. Physical contact meant she had to feel and she didn’t want to feel pain. She didn’t want to feel everything she’d buried deep inside her. And Phoebe was here to make her face all of it.
“I get that you’re here, I do.” Prue was getting a bit desperate to not feel. The inner emotions were starting to shift in a way that she didn’t like, and she wanted to go back to having everything under control. She didn’t need this right now.
---
Phoebe did break the hug, but she kept her hands on Prue’s arms to keep her in place. “Prue, listen to me...you can’t close yourself off like this, okay? I don’t know how it is that I’m here...maybe it’s to find out what happened so we can fix it all. What I do know is that you need me, and I’m going to help you as much as I can...okay?”
The emotions tumbling from Prue were nearly overwhelming, but she forced herself to smile anyway. “Now...where are you staying? One of these camps you mentioned? “
---
Prue looked at Phoebe, doing her hardest to keep her emotions at bay. Giving into them simply wouldn’t do. But she knew all too well about time traveling to fix things. But she really didn’t know how they could correct everything. “I don’t know how everything can be fixed, let alone our lives.” Prue hadn’t even mentioned the fact she’d lost a child almost at the same time she had lost Phoebe.
“Yes, there are camps, but I don’t stay in them. I stay with Damien and Leo.” Speaking of Leo, she should probably call him. He’d definitely need to know about this. “Leo!” Prue called out, then waited for him to appear.
---
He’d tried taking advantage of having a quiet hour to himself to meditate, but his mind had wandered instead. It was a struggle anymore. There wasn’t much in the world to feel calm and peaceful about. Instead he found himself staring at a wall, twisting his wedding ring around his finger, lost in thought. At least he was until he heard something that startled him out of his thoughts.
Phoebe. Leo had been her Whitelighter long enough to recognize her voice without a second thought, but it couldn’t have been her. Not after the virus had taken hold and then her death at Pandora’s hand. None of Prue’s attempts to bring her back had worked and all the research he had done had come up with nothing, short of making a deal. So why was he hearing her now? Was it really even her?
He orbed in a few paces behind Prue, before she had finished calling his name. Just as he’d heard her, he saw her standing there. As far as he could tell, it was her. “What’s going on?” he asked warily as he stepped up next to Prue.
-----------
“We’ve stopped things before. Like when I was supposed to burn at the stake...we stopped that from happening. We can stop this too.” She spoke with determination, hoping to try and make Prue feel better....though she knew that wasn’t going to happen right away. When Prue called for their brother-in-law, Phoebe’s hands slowly dropped from her sister’s arms. As Leo appeared, she smiled again, trying to pick up on what he was feeling as well.
“Leo, hi...before you ask, yes it’s really me, I promise. And I’m not possessed either.” Her gaze shifted back to her sister. “Prue told me a little about what happened.”
---
Prue looked at Phoebe, finding it really hard to believe what she was saying. After all, about the only thing Prue believed in these days was fighting and killing. She’d fallen far from what she’d once been. Morals no longer ruled her life, let alone helping others. She’d only stick her neck out for Leo and Damien, and that was it. Everyone else was on their own. She didn’t respond, but it was clear by the look on her face and the things she felt that she didn’t believe Phoebe’s words.
When Leo arrived, she looked over at him. “It’s Phoebe, the one from 2010. I know it’s hard to believe, but she told me things only she would know.” Prue also knew Leo would be able to feel it was really Phoebe sense he could feel all of his charges. She crossed her arms again and flipped her hair away from her face as she looked back at her little sister. Taking a slow, deep breath, Prue took the opportunity to push her emotions back inside the little space she’d dug out for them and locked them inside. “I told her about what happened to her.” But not about what happened to me she added silently.
---
It wouldn’t be the first time the sister’s had traveled through time. He’d even pointed them towards a spell to move into the future once. But what didn’t make sense was why now? Her death had been three years ago and while it was possible that one of the spells Prue had done had produced a different result than expected, possibly a call back, it should have happened then. Not now. But every other reason, demon, shapeshifter, illusion, didn’t work because it really was Phoebe standing in front of them, alive and unaware of what had happened to her.
The wariness gave way to guilt. Whitelighters took the loss of their charges hard. When it came to family, it was worse. Her standing there was a reminder that he had been too late to help her, just as he’d been able to save Prue, but too late to save her unborn child. He’d failed them both. Yet at the same time, her presence brought out a small spark of hope where he’d given up, accepting that this was the world they had to live in. He wanted to believe that things could change now, if someone from their past was bearing witness to the future. But they’d put hope in one thing, one event too many over the years that hadn’t turned out.
“It is her,” Leo said, glancing to Prue, as much to reassure her as it was to reassure himself. After a moment of silent consideration, he stepped forward to take Phoebe in his arms, the gesture needing no verbal explanation. You were missed..
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Phoebe’s eyes returned to her sister’s again, and she frowned a little, not liking what she was sensing. But she’d take care of that later....right now, she didn’t think she was really in the best place to try and fix her sister. When Leo confirmed who she was, Phoebe shifted her attention to him again and she offered a small smile, which grew when he hugged her. At least he seemed happy to see her.
She wrapped her arms around him as well and returned the hug tightly, closing her eyes for a moment. She could tell what he was trying to say, and she appreciated it, even if she had only seen him an hour ago. A minute later, she reluctantly let him go.
“So...I’m guessing we probably don’t want to stay around here, right?”
---
Prue was happy to see Phoebe again, but emotions weren’t really her thing anymore. Not the good ones, anyway. She wasn’t exactly nice anymore, and she couldn’t just flip a switch and be who she used to be, the person that Phoebe remembered her as. Prue had been through too much in the past five years to just snap out of her ice queen state. There was a part of her that wanted to join in the hug, but she didn’t do physical touching much. Unless it was sex-related.
“No. It’s dangerous.” Prue said in response to Phoebe’s question. Prue well knew her sister might make a comment about Prue walking alone, but she didn’t care. Prue could handle herself in a fight. And if the need arose, she’d only need to call for Leo and he’d orb her out. And if she did end up dead, well that was just what her fate would be.
Prue turned her gaze back to Leo. “Are you staying in one of the camps tonight? Otherwise we could go back to my safehouse.” Well, the safehouse she shared with Damien. Prue and Damien were two of the nomads, always on the move. For the moment, she and Damien had found an abandoned house that they made safe. For Prue, it was better than living in one of the camps. She couldn’t handle people anymore. Prue was known for telekinetically throwing people that annoyed her across rooms, even if they were allies. She had no patience and with her abuse of her magic, she probably wasn’t much better than a demon these days.
---
He hugged her just as tightly back, a ghost of a smile there and gone as quick as it had appeared. When she stepped back, he turned so he could see both women. “You’re lucky Prue found you first. It’s mostly Croats and demons out on the street since Lucifer took over,” Leo elaborated quietly, glancing over his shoulder at the empty street. They’d been lucky enough that nothing had interrupted the conversation yet, but lately luck didn’t hold out that long. Phoebe needed to be brought up to speed, the sister’s needed to talk, and out in the open wasn’t the place to be doing it.
“I’ll take you back to the safehouse.” With this new development, even if he could be at her side again as soon as she called, something was going on and he was sticking around. He split his time between the safehouse and wherever else he needed to be, especially on the days when he and Prue managed to get on each other’s last nerve. There seemed to be more days like that, as their ways of dealing with what had happened, what was happening, conflicted more than they meshed. But they also had their fair share of moments of understanding. She was his family and he would have done anything to see her safe. Now it looked like he was back to looking out for two Halliwells again.
He held out his hands to Phoebe and Prue, glancing in Prue’s direction. “Unless you haven’t met your quota yet today.”
------------
Phoebe started to point out that Prue was walking along alone, but she stopped. Prue did have the active power, after all, a she’d also been here, living through all this. With a sigh, she shook her head, deciding that it could wait for now. She looked back to Leo, eyes widening a little. “Wait a sec, Lucifer took over? How’s that possible? Weren’t Dean and Sam going to kill him? And what are Croats....are they the people out there that I’m picking up all that mindless rage from?”
When he said they were going to go back to the safehouse, she took his hand without even thinking about it - it was natural for her, after seven years. His words made her frown and look at her sister again. “Your...quota? Prue, what’s he talking about?”
---
Prue closed her eyes for a moment when Phoebe asked about Lucifer. Her patience was short, but she knew her sister had no idea what was going on, so she couldn’t lose her temper about it. Prue glanced at Leo, then looked back at Phoebe. “Sam is Lucifer.” Prue said simply. “Lucifer is using him, possessing him in a way. Only this is different. It’s complicated to explain, really.” It was a conversation that they should have at the safehouse, not standing out in an open street.
“Yes, my quota. This is war, Phoebe. If I expect to survive, I need to kill.” Prue looked at her sister, the heavy burden of survival hanging on her shoulders. “If I don’t, then I’ll be the next one dead.” It was a bit difficult for her to admit to Phoebe that she’d become a hardened killer, but she’d had good reason. And if she hadn’t become one, she would’ve been dead years earlier.
Turning her gaze back to Leo, she shook her head. “No, I haven’t. But I’ll go back out later. My priority now is getting Phoebe somewhere safe.” Prue reached out and took Leo’s hand, hoping they could get home and get Phoebe up to speed before something decided to kill one of them.
---
He started to answer Phoebe’s question but Prue got to it first, so he let her take it. “Those would be the Croats you were picking up on,” he added once she was done, answering the second part of the question. “Once the virus takes hold, there’s nothing left but mindless rage and violence. If you pick up on that, get out of there.” They weren’t about to lose her a second time. It was bad enough that Prue was out there day after day, tempting death.
“Then let’s get out of here,” he said. “We can talk more off the streets.” Once both sisters had taken his hands, Leo orbed them back to the safehouse.