Don't Cry For Me, San Francisco

"It is magnificent," Prue said, looking up at the Golden Gate Bridge.
It was eleven o’clock the next morning. Though it was past 3:30 am when they they had finished their toasts at P3 and returned to The Manor, Prue was not feeling sleepy. The beautiful sky and clear morning air made her feel refreshed and awake. As did the smell of the water.

Prue was standing with Piper beside Fort Point, over which the distinctively orange bridge arcs as it begins its span across the waters of the Golden Gate. A small wave from the bay lapped at the rocks that extended from the fort, at the northern tip of San Francisco, and continued along The Presidio towards the city. Though the fort is of historical significance, being almost one hundred-fifty years old, and preceding by many decades the recently closed military reservation that The Presidio, now a park, had been, most people did not come there to see it.

Some simply came by virtue of their walking or bicycling along the park's partially completed promenade that ended at the fort’s red brick walls. But most came for the up-close underside view of the bridge, as seen from ground level at the foot of the bay.

As, too, had Prue and Piper.

Prue's eyes followed the bridge's majestic span across the water, then looked down to Fort Baker and the small, picturesque Horsheshoe Bay Marina at Point Cavallo, nestled below the bridge's northern tower on the Marin side of the bay.

"Stuart's right," Prue said. "San Francisco is beautiful."

Piper turned to her right and looked back, over the near side of the bay, at the city. In the distance she could see the Marina Yacht Harbor and the Bay Bridge behind it. Beyond the Marina and above it to it's right stood Coit Tower and Telegraph Hill.

"It's very different from Hollywood and The Valley," Piper said. "But I've grown accustomed to it."

Two tour boats, filled with tourists, plied their appointed routes as a score of sailboats played in the water, some making their way towards Angel Island across the bay. A lone tugboat, its work for the day done, passed slowly underneath the bridge.

"I've fallen in love with this city," Prue said. "I have to come back here soon. Maybe on a weekend."

"It won't be the same," Piper said. "The Manor won't be here, the club won't be here." In her mind she pictured both places. And how comfortable, and at home, she felt in them. "Even your Four One Five magazine won't exist anymore. It will be...so strange."

A wave from the bay splashed hard against the rocks, throwing up a spray in their faces.

"Strange," Prue repeated, not flinching from the water, silently looking out at the bridge.

"It's amazing, isn't it," Prue said, "how our perceptions have changed over the seven weeks that we've been here. The real world being changed back to how it used to be, how it should be, will seem strange to us. Yet living our lives as Charmed's TV characters seems perfectly normal."

"Maybe, in a way, our lives here have been more normal then we've realized," Piper said. "We've grown up in Hollywood, we live in Hollywood. Acting is pretty much the only life we've really known.

"Here, we've had to live and work like regular, normal people. People who aren't in the industry. And do the normal things that they would do. Like running a club, working for a magazine-"

"Vanquishing demons, casting spells," Prue interjected. Piper looked at her for a second and they both laughed.

A light started to form to their side and Leo appeared.

"Leo!" Piper greeted him with a big hug and an extra long kiss.

"I'll, uh, wait for you by the car," Prue said to her, but Piper didn't even hear her.

"Wow...that gives me what to look forward to for Thursday night," Leo said.

"Thursday night?" Piper asked.

"Now that you've vanquished Argyris and the world is safe, they’re giving me Thursday night off.," Leo said.

"Uhhh," Piper made a face. "You're timing is terrible."

"Why?  What's happening?" he asked.

"Today is Tuesday," she said. "Anything can happen in the two days between now and Thursday night."

"It's not as if the world is going to end by Thursday," Leo said. "You took care of that when you vanquished Argyris."

"It might anyway," Piper said.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

What do I mean? Piper thought. She wanted to open up to him. But how could she explain that the world as far as who she was, might end. Or who Leo was, might end - whoever he really was.

Or...would it end for him?

"It's just that...we haven't seen each other, except for work, in almost a week," she said trying to come up with a plausible explanation . "Thursday...is like forever."

Leo took her in his arms, held her close to him and looked into her eyes.

"Nothing will keep me from you Thursday night," he said. "I promise."

"Don't make promises you can't keep," she said with a little sadness.

"I'll keep this one," he said. "You can hold me to it."

Piper took a deep breath. "Then...I will," she said, looking into his eyes.

Leo kissed her again, then disappeared in the white light.

Piper slowly shook her head.

"Goodbye, Leo," she said sadly, a single, small tear forming in each of her eyes.

 

"It's going to feel strange not being here," Phoebe said to Stuart. She took a deep breath of the fresh morning air as they walked along the Marina Green that runs beside the bay.

"Don't get me wrong," she continued. "I want to go home.

"I WANT TO GO HOME," she repeated loudly, emphasizing each word as she looked upwards, then giggled.

"I miss my mom, my dad, my home," she continued. "But I'm going to miss being Phoebe Halliwell."

"You'll still be Phoebe," Stuart said, "every time you step in front of the camera."

"That's going to feel so weird," she said. "Reading from a script and acting the role after having lived it. Shooting individual scenes instead of everything flowing naturally as it has in real life."

She thought silently for a moment. They reached the end of the Green and continued walking alongside the Yacht Harbor.

"But despite that," she said, "it will be good to get back. I still want a career as an actress, not as a witch. There are a lot of things that I want to do with my life as Alyssa Milano."

"Fighting evil won't be one of them," he said. "It won't be quite the same as vanquishing dangerous demons."

"No, it won't," she said. "But we know that there are other witches. They can do the vanquishing instead of me."

"Yes," Stuart said, "I suppose there are. But you also won't have your powers."

"Maybe not," Phoebe said. "But there are other things that I can do. I don't have to to be a witch with Charmed powers to help people."

There was a commotion at the end of the harbor and as they walked towards it to see what was happening they recognized someone in the middle of the crowd.

"What happened, Daryl?" Phoebe asked after they made their way through the crowd to him.

"A missing child," he answered. "That woman over there was walking along the edge of the Marina with her three small children. One of them tripped and fell and scraped his leg. She gave him her attention and after she got him to stop crying, her two-year old was missing. I was a block away when the call came through.

"I've called for help to go down into the water," he added grimly.

Phoebe looked at the woman who was crying hysterically. After a moment, she turned back to Daryl.

"Give me something from the child," she said to him. Daryl looked at her for a second then walked over to the mother. In a moment he returned holding a small doll.

"The mother found it by the bricks," he said, pointing to the brick-lined edge of the Yacht Harbor. Phoebe took the doll from him and closed her eyes. After a few seconds, she opened them and looked around at the boats, a few of which were sitting on supports on the adjacent land. She saw what she was looking for and began walking quickly towards one of them. Daryl looked at Stuart for a second and then they both quickly followed her.

Three land-locked boats sat behind a small walkway fence. Phoebe hurried to the second boat and crawled underneath it. In a moment, she crawled back out and handed a sleeping child to Morris.

"She must have wandered off, found a comfortable spot under the boat and fell asleep," Phoebe said.

Morris looked at her silently for a moment and exhaled.

"I became a cop because I wanted to help people," he said slowly. "But I could never help anyone like this.

"Whatever your secret is...you must feel wonderful knowing that you can help people like that...when no one else can."  He turned around and carried the baby back to his mother.

Phoebe stared after him silently for a few seconds, then turned back to Stuart.

"Had he been working from a Charmed script, he couldn't have had a better line to make me feel the responsibility to have my powers, could he," she said, sounding shaken. They heard the baby's mother's sudden cries and watched her grab her child from Morris and hug it.

Phoebe closed her eyes and just stood silently. Stuart could only guess at what was going through her mind. After a minute, she opened her eyes, stared at him and exhaled.

"Let's go," Phoebe said, barely audibly. As they reached the crowd, she turned to look at the mother's face, now filled with tears of relief and joy. They passed her without stopping and Phoebe took Stuart's hand and held it tightly. What she had wanted, and what she had no longer wanted, had been so clear to Phoebe just a few minutes before. Now, it had all been turned upside down - and the only thing that was clear was the conflict she now felt inside of her. She stared ahead blankly as they silently left the harbor.