DISCLAIMER: Based on the Spelling Productions TV show, created by Constance M. Burge. All characters are property of Spelling Productions.

Prologue

Phoebe sits alone at the table. In front of her is a small cake, with no frosting, and a cassette player. She lights the small, 2/3 used candle on the cake, then turns on the tape player. The sounds of 'Happy Birthday' come out of the small speakers, and Phoebe begins to sing softly. When the song finishes, she turns off the player and sighs. "Well, Pheebs, happy birthday. Wow, times I never thought I'd make it this far." Phoebe stares at the cake, not noticing the tears forming. "You know, its been over ten years. Hard to believe. Ah, just make your wish and blow out the candle." And she leans forward and blows it out. "Ten years. Ten wishes. Maybe, just maybe one will come true." For she has made the same wish for the last ten birthdays. That she could have someone, anyone, to talk with. Shaking her head, she picks at the cake. "You're dreaming, girl. There is no one. Just eat your cake. You have things to do today, you can't sit around and be like this." But she doesn't move. She just stares at the cake and remembers. To a time ten years, six months, and three days back.

Part 1

05/29/2000

Piper and Phoebe were cleaning up the kitchen after a wonderful breakfast. Prue was sitting on the couch, reading the paper, when Leo orbed in. "Prue! Where are Phoebe and Piper!" "Right here, Leo" Phoebe says as she and Piper walk in. "Good! Quick, you're all in danger! You have to get to the Book of Shadows right now." Leo pulls Prue off the couch and begins pushing the sisters towards the stairs. "Leo, what's wrong?" "Piper, I'll explain. Just go!" They all move up the stairs for the attic. "Warlocks have decided to get rid of you. They summoned an ArchDemon, a Lord of Hell. It could be here any time. There is a spell in the Book to help protect you, so you can cast the spell to send him back. Your powers won't stop him, only the spells. Hurry!" In the attic, the book is already turning its pages. The sisters gather round and begin to chant.

Weave a circle round us twice,
Proof from magic we do entice,
That we may in safety abide,
Let the evil near us be denied.

As they finish, a horrible creature appears in the attic. Piper immediately freezes it, but it lasts only a second. Prue tries to slam it back, but its like trying to move a mountaintop. With a laugh that can freeze blood, the creature raises its arm and throws a flaming sphere at the sisters. But the sphere seems to hit a wall and dissipates. Leo has turned the Book to the proper page, and yells "Here! The spell!". The sisters quickly start the chant, as the creature throws a blue white sphere, which again shatters.

Harken now to the sisters three.
You who were wakened from a timeless sleep,
In a place dark and timeless, unfathomably deep,
Return to the slumber from which you were waked!
Return and go quickly! Your blood-thirst is slaked!
This we command by the Power of Three!

Just as the chant reaches its end, the creature jumps forward, screams "Exsilium!", and hits Phoebe. Phoebe flies backwards, feeling as though she has gone through a wall of water, then slams hard into the wall, losing consciousness. The ArchDemon screams as the spell takes effect, sinking into the floor, banished back to its realm.

Phoebe comes to, slowly trying to get her bearings. Suddenly, remembering, she tries to sit up and look. Nausea hits her at the sudden movement. After a minute, she cautiously looks about. She is still in the attic, lying where the demon threw her. But her sisters and the demon are gone. She gets up slowly, trying to assess the damage to her. "A definite headache. I bet a concussion. Ow, and I think I may have busted my arm!" She cradles her left arm, and tries to step forward. Her left leg almost collapses, and she realizes her knee is hurt. She is crying now, as the pain is bad. "Prue! Piper! I need help! … PRUE!! PIPER!!"

She manages to make her way down the stairs, though it takes a hour. She moves to the telephone, and dials 911. There is no answer. "What is going on here? Where are my sisters? God, I have to get help." Phoebe gets Piper's keys and makes her way out to the jeep. Standing by it, she looks around. It is quiet, and there is no one around. "Hello? Anybody? I need help here! Please? Somebody?" After a minute, she climbs in the jeep and drives for the hospital. Phoebe sees no people during the trip. She does see several cars that have crashed, and at least one fire. But no people. At the seemingly deserted hospital, she sees an ambulance, lights flashing, back door open. The stretcher is half in, half out, as though the medics disappeared while taking it out. Phoebe hobbles in the ER and looks around. "Anybody here? Yo! Doctors! You have a cute patient, needs help! Please?" She sits in a chair, crying. "Oh God, please! There has to be someone."

It took her an hour or two, but she finally sits up and begins to talk. She needs to hear a voice, even if its only hers. "Ok. Everyone is gone. It's just me. Get a hold of yourself, Pheebs. You have things to do if you're gonna survive this. First, I gotta get my arm and leg taken care of. And I have to hurry. It's going to be dark soon." Phoebe hobbles into the ER proper, and starts rummaging around. Before long, she has an air cast on her arm and her leg. She has found crutches and canes. She finds the pharmacy, breaks the door open, Using a book on drugs she found in the gift store, she finds medicines to help concussions and sprains. She looks wishfully at the painkillers, but shakes her head. "Nope, too tempting. It would be nice to get high and forget, but it would definitely be a bad thing right now." Getting extra bandages, she goes back to the jeep and drives back to the manor. Along the way, she honks the horn, trying to get somebody to come out. But no one is there. She is alone.

She spent the next two days resting, letting her hurts heal. She plays a lot of music and watches videos. She then took Piper's Cherokee and drove around. Fifty miles in every direction, and she found no one. No radio or TV stations on the air. She spent one afternoon just randomly dialing numbers, but either they were out of service or just rang. After two days, she faced the fact. Phoebe Halliwell was alone, perhaps the last human on the planet.

Her fifth day alone, she makes plans, writing on paper what she thinks she needs to do. She lists things she thinks she will need, from food to medical supplies to paper to write on. "I'll need to get generators and gas. I can fix those houses across street to use as warehouses, with humidifiers and air conditioners. I can strip stores for things I need to stock. I'll need to clear out some land for farming. Better start in the morning." She gets up, and the power goes off. "Great. Perfect timing." Phoebe turns on the flashlight she has been carrying, for just this thing, and starts to look for some candles.

Part 2

11/01/2000

Over the next six months, Phoebe accomplished a lot. She stripped everything out of the three houses across the street. She then sealed them, hooked generators up to them, and began ransacking stores and storing the items in the houses. Her list was impressive. She started with pickup trucks, but quickly found a Ryder truck with a ramp and another with a lift gate. She emptied several grocery stores, drug stores, and a Wal-Mart. She kept track of all of it on her laptop, to be printed out later. She found a small gasoline forklift and learned to use it. A major find was a store with freeze dried food, sort of like military rations. She got a lot of medical items and equipment, and manuals. She stripped 1 Home Depot and 3 Sears stores of tools, air conditioners, and other machines. Phoebe even found some small tractors to help clear land. Scouting on the highways, she found 15 gasoline tanker trucks, and parked them in a large, empty lot. She found 5 large water trucks, and parked them there too. She even parked two fire engine pumper trucks next to the manor.

She turned Dan's house into a library, stripping out several bookstores and 2 public libraries. Her prized possession was a series of books that explained how the pioneers of old did things. But Phoebe also made sure she had lots of fiction to read. The house on the other side of the manor became her barn. Here she stored seeds, grain, fertilizers, things she had found in stores in the farming areas. After a small fire damaged a house next to her three storage houses, she rearranged everything in them, so that each house had some of everything in it.

The manor now had power, when she fired up the two generators she had wired in. She got every music CD, CD player, VCR, and video tape she could find. She found plans at the library for a windmill to help supplement her power needs. She even found a book on how to drill wells. And today she finally finished putting up the fence that now surrounds the manor, the storage houses, and her farms. Entering the kitchen, she noticed the calendar. She had faithfully been marking the days, determined to keep track of time. "Son of a gun! Tomorrow is my birthday! Well, I'll be. How did I let that slip up on me. Guess my old age is showing. Maybe … yeah, I think I'll bake me a cake." Phoebe does, making sure to clean the kitchen after she is done. "Piper must not find this place a mess. She would never let me here the end of it."

The next day, Phoebe sings Happy Birthday to herself, blows out her candle, and makes her wish. "I wish I had someone to talk with." As she eats her cake, she talks out loud. She has stopped thinking to herself, preferring to talk, just to hear a voice. "Well, you still got you. I need to get started. Let's see, I have to check the veggie patch today. The wheat and corn need to be looked at too. That one humidifier in the machine house needs to be replaced. Oh yeah, its Saturday! I have to dust and clean Prue and Piper's rooms. Tomorrow is scouting day. I need to see if I can't find another tanker truck or two." Phoebe moves about her chores, talking constantly.

Later that night, Phoebe is in the attic, talking to the Book Of Shadows. "I've looked through you almost every night since the Change. I guess now I have to admit I'm not going to find an answer here." Sighing, Phoebe hesitates, then opens the book to the next blank page. Taking a pen, she begins to write.

It has been 6 months now, and I can find no solution to this problem. Its been hard, especially the solitude. There are times I think I won't make it. I just miss my sisters.

Phoebe H.

11/02/2001

"What do you know, Pheebs, you are 26 today! I bet that would surprise a few people. Still, things have gone ok. I built that windmill, and it actually works. Found another couple of tanker trucks. And I have turned into a pretty good shot. Self-defense, you know. The wildlife is taking back the cities. There was a huge fire downtown few months ago, but it burned out before it got near me. And I think I have cleared out about every store in a 50 mile radius."

As she talks to herself, Phoebe puts a candle in the middle of the cake she baked and lights it. Humming the Happy Birthday song, she doesn't notice the tears forming. Leaning forward, she blows out the candle, closes her eyes and says "I wish I had someone here with me. Just to hear another voice say something." Opening her eyes, she smiles at the picture of her sisters she has propped up on the table. "I wonder just where you are? I hope you are both together. Piper would have a hard time if she was alone." Sighing, she looks at her birthday present. She had found some letters written by Piper, and she had saved them for this night. She read them slowly, savoring this memory of her sister.

That night, lying in her bed, Phoebe wonders why she goes on. It would be so easy to just end her life. But she knows she won't. "I'm too much a survivor. I like life too much. Even this one."

Part 3

11/02/2003

"Happy Birthday, Pheebs! Wow, three and a half years. Bet you never thought you would last this long. Let's see, what did I accomplish this year. That new water tower is working, and doesn't leak too much. The three windmills work great. And those solar cells I put on the roofs keep my batteries charged. Course, I'm getting low on gas, but I'll find some more. I hope. And I'm an official fire fighter! Thought I'd lose this place with that fire a couple months ago. Yep, you've done good, old gal." Phoebe blows out the candle. "I wish… I wish the same thing I always do. I wish I had company, someone to talk to." She sighs, then takes a bite of her cake. "Well, not a Piper special, but not bad. Last of the frosting, though, so I better enjoy it." Phoebe can't keep the sob from her voice, or stop the tears that form. "Oh God, I miss Piper. I could even put up with Prue yelling at me."

That night, Phoebe dreamed of her sisters. She woke up crying, for she suddenly could not remember what her sister's voices sounded like. She clutched the photo of Prue and Piper she had begun sleeping with, crying even harder. Finally, she got up and crept to Piper's room. "Piper, you won't mind if I sleep here tonight, will you?" Curling up in Piper's bed, she managed to go to sleep.

11/02/2006

"My last birthday candle. Maybe I can find some more. Or I'll just wrap this one up and save it." Phoebe puts the candle in the middle of the small cake. "Happy Birthday, Pheebs. Sorry you can't have any fancy presents. But that fire caused problems, especially with the drought, and I just couldn't get time. Still, I got my cake and candle, and that is plenty." She lights the candle, and plays a children's cassette of Happy Birthday she found. Smiling, she turns off the player and blows out the candle. "My sixth birthday alone. This year was a hard one. Lost a storage house to fire." Phoebe absently rubs the burn scar on her shoulder. "Lost three fields of crops to that hail storm. And I thought I was dead when those damn dogs attacked. Just lucky the ones that bit me were rabies free." She begins eating the plain cake, after carefully taking the candle and wrapping it up. "Still, some good things. I'm alive. Guess that's good. And I found two more tankers of gas. It still seems good. Wish I had some chocolate, though. Or ice cream! Or chocolate ice cream!! Oh hell, might as well wish for a man." Phoebe wipes the tears forming in her eyes. "Or my sisters."

That night, Phoebe goes to Book of Shadows, and writes:

So much time has passed. I must be the last person on this world, and that terrifies me. I think this will be the last time I come up here. I have not used magic since the Change. And I have had no visions or premonitions. I wish I would, though. I pick things up around the manor and keep hoping I'll see the past, see and hear my sisters again. But it never works. I hope they are safe and happy, where ever they are.

P. H.

11/02/2008

Phoebe dragged herself over to the couch. "Oh God, I hurt. Stupid, how could I be so stupid." The week before, while working on one of her windmills, Phoebe had slipped and fallen almost 15 feet. She had lost consciousness and come to late at night, barely able to move. The only medicine she still had was aspirin. She couldn't even take a bath, cause she couldn't haul the water. And forget climbing the stairs to get to her bed. She had her right leg wrapped in an Ace bandage, and her left arm in a brace. Thank God she had thought to salvage those from those drug stores. She didn't think she had broken them, but really didn't know. She had crutches, but that just barely let her move around the house. Her back was sore, and her ribs burned with each breath. At the couch, she sat with her eyes closed, trying to catching her breath. Then she smiled. Sitting on the table were the Birthday Candle, and the last pack of Twinkies in California. "Oh yeah, almost forgot. My birthday. This makes, what, eight now. Can't get the tape player, its too high for me to reach this year. Well, we have to make do." She opens the Twinkies, puts the candle on one, and lights it. "Happy Birthday, Pheebs." She manages to blow out the candle, wishing what she has come to think of as her Birthday Wish. Staring at the smoking candle, she says very softly "Yeah, Happy Birthday. Hope you get to have some more"

Part 4

11/02/2010

Phoebe suddenly jumps up. "Oh crap! Here I sit daydreaming like some idiot." Then she pauses. "Ah, what the hell. After ten years, I deserve a day off. I think I'll treat myself. Yeah! Movie night! Why not, it's my birthday." As Phoebe walks outside, she pauses as she catches her reflection in the glass. She is very tan now, and quite muscular, but thin. Her left arm has a slight bend where that break didn't heal quite right. It still hurts her when it rains or gets cold. She limps, result of that same stupid accident. She has a set of claw marks on her forehead, courtesy of a cougar that was just a bit slower than her. She has bite marks on her arms and legs from the dog attacks some four years ago. And her once lovely hair is ragged, full of gray streaks. She just cuts off whatever gets in the way, and keeps the rest in a ponytail. "Boy, you could use a trip to the salon. Well, Pheebs, you sure won't win any beauty contests." She laughs. "Actually, you would. Being the only girl around has some advantages, I guess. But hell, you're alive. And that beats the alternative. At least I keep telling myself that."

As Phoebe walks over to check the generator, she automatically scans the area, her hand on the automatic on her hip. Snakes have been a problem this year. She worries about snakebites, the severe shortage of doctors and anti-venom, you know. Seeing nothing amiss, she makes sure there is gas in the tank, checks that the battery is fresh, and cranks it up. After it is running, she starts the second one. Then she goes back in the house. She turns on the lights, smiling, and feels the air conditioning on her face. "Can't believe it still works. Oh man, that feels good. Well, first, I gotta clean the kitchen. Don't want Piper on my butt. Then I'll fire up the DVD player. Maybe… oh, maybe something funny. Maybe… Ah, just think on it later. After the kitchen, I think I'll take a bath. Yeah, and treat myself to a bubble bath. Not much left, but it is my birthday."

Phoebe walks thru the house, turning on lights as she goes. Going up the stairs, she pauses, then goes and looks in Piper's room, then Prue's. She has kept them clean, and exactly the way she found them ten years ago. Suddenly, she has an impulse to see the attic, and the Book. As she walks in, she flicks on the light. "Wow, I guess it has been… I don't know. Years." She remembers how she spent her first 6 months alone using every free minute to search the Book Of Shadows. "But never found a thing. Nothing to explain this. Nothing on that demon thing. Nothing on how to bring everybody back." She walks over to the Book, closed, sitting on its stand. She rubs a finger over it. "Yuck! Must be an inch of dust! Prue would really be pissed. Poor old Book. I wonder if you get lonely too." She starts to turn away, and suddenly the Book opens, the pages flipping. "Omigod! It hasn't done that since the Change." When it stops, she moves up. "A blank page? A BLANK PAGE! What kind of help is that? Cripes, I thought you were.. going… to… " Phoebe trails off, as words begin to appear on the page.

Words written in Piper's neat script:

Phoebe,

If you can read this, say this spell. You must say each line after it is written, but before the next line finishes. We will be saying it, too. Please be there, Pheebs. Please come back to us!

Phoebe feels like her heart has stopped. She shakes her head, wondering if she has finally cracked, finally gone over that edge into insanity. She watches as the words begin to appear again. "Oh well, nothing to lose! If nothing happens, I'll know I've gone nuts. Here goes!" And she says each line out loud as it is done being written:

You, betrayed by time and space,
Banished without a single trace,
Feel your proper form and case,
Recognize your true world's face.
Cross the void of time and space!
Seek and find your proper place!

The room seems to spin, colors flash, and Phoebe feels as if she has been dragged thru a wall of water. She gets dizzy, and hears a loud rushing noise, as if she was hurtling through the air. It is too much for Phoebe. She feels herself start to faint, closes her eyes tight, and falls in a heap to the floor.

As Phoebe feels the world stop stabilize, she thinks she hears Piper and Prue calling her name. She struggles to sit up, then stops. "Why bother? You've just gone nuts. They won't be there. I'll still be all alone." "Pheebs, you're not alone anymore!" Phoebe sits straight up at hearing Prue's voice. "Oh honey, we will always come for you." Piper's voice! Phoebe opens her eyes, and she is sitting on the floor of the attic. And Prue and Piper are with her! Crying out, and then crying for joy, she grabs them both in a hug, unable to say anything, just glorying in their touch and their voices.

Later, they are all in the living room, curled up on the sofa. Phoebe refuses to let them out of sight, and won't even let go of Piper. As Phoebe seems reluctant to talk, Prue has explained that when the demon hit Phoebe, she seemed to fade away before she hit the wall. After the demon vanished, the sister's and Leo were frantic to figure out what happened to Phoebe. "Leo found out from the white lighters just what the demon was, and what it could do." Prue is explaining to a strangely quiet Phoebe. "It banished you to another world, a world where only you existed. We found the notes you wrote in the Book of Shadows, actually saw the words write themselves. But we didn't understand them. It said months had gone by, when it was only minutes. It didn't matter, cause we knew then that we could write a spell to return you, and you would see it. Leo brought us the spell, and Piper wrote it in the book. Then we saw you kind of fade in, and collapse." Piper reaches up and strokes Phoebe's forehead, asking "What happened there, Pheebs? At first, it looked like you had changed. You looked older, your hair was so long, with gray streaks, and there were scars on your face. What happened, sweet girl?"

Phoebe smiles. After ten and a half years of just her own voice, she is happy to let someone else talk. She had forgotten how wonderful her sisters sound. Prue's voice was so strong and confident. And Piper's seemed almost musical. Once she had calmed down, she had realized she was young again, just as she was before she left this world. Her injuries were gone, her appearance back. And she was actually touching another person. It had been so long, she had forgotten how nice and warm human contact was. "How long was I gone?" Phoebe's voice is so very soft. Prue smiles at her as Piper says "Maybe ten or fifteen minutes, love." Phoebe laughs softly, and smiles at her sisters. Her voice is still soft, and while there is still a hint of weariness, there is happiness in her tone again. "Sometimes you can live a lifetime in a few minutes. Did you know? Sometimes wishes come true. Let me tell you a story, about ten wishes. Ten birthday wishes."

Epilogue

Phoebe, as was her habit, woke up about an hour before dawn. The first thing she did was look at the green glowing face of her alarm clock. Sighing, knowing it was silly but unable to stop herself, she got up and padded softly to Piper's room. There was always that moment of dread, when she was sure she find an empty room, learn that these last two months were only a dream. Opening the door slowly, she stared at Piper's bed until, by movement or sound, she knew Piper was there. Sighing in relief, she then went to Prue's room, again waiting until she knew. She was back, her sisters were there, she was not alone. Back in her own room, she began doing stretching exercises. She softly said "You would think, after two months, you don't need to check on them." But a small voice in her head disagreed. She knew she would always have to check, to be sure she was not, again, alone.

Prue came in Piper's room and sat on her bed. "Morning Prue." "Hi Piper." "Phoebe check up on you, too?" Prue laughs. "Yep. Same as every morning. Its like she doesn't believe she is back until she sees us here." Piper sits up in her bed, sighing. "Will she ever be our little Phoebe again, Prue" Prue smiles and hugs Piper, then becomes serious. "We have to remember, Piper. To us, she was missing maybe 15 minutes. To her, the world was missing for over ten years. She still looks like our Pheebs, but she has ten years of experiences and memories we never will, probably could never even imagine. We just have to give her time, and be there for her."

Piper and Prue go downstairs to the kitchen, where Phoebe is making coffee. She still gets a real kick out of the fact she can turn a handle, and get fresh water. Watching her laughing and playing with the water running from the spigot, they can't help but smile. Prue nudges Piper and quietly says "I think she'll be back." When Phoebe turns and sees them, they move to her, both hugging her tight. Phoebe, feeling safe in her sister's arms, says so softly it is almost unheard "I love you both. Thank you for bringing me back."