Disclaimer: I do not own Charmed. I also don't own Sheryl Crow's song, "Always on your Side."

A/n: This was inspired by Sheryl Crow's song, "Always on your Side." I recommend looking up the lyrics or listening to the song sometime if you haven't heard it. It's really very beautiful.I think this is going to be a multi-chapter fic. We'll see. There are no spoilers as long as you're caught up to "Gone With the Witches." I have read no spoilers for the last two episodes, so this is based purely on my imagination.Let me know what you think.

Setting: May 2007.

Alone, Eternally


My yesterdays are all boxed up and neatly put away
But every now and then you come to mind
Cause you were always waiting to be picked to play the game
But when your name was called, you found a place to hide
When you knew that I was always on your side

-Sheryl Crow, "Always on your Side"

She stood turned to the side in front of the mirror, her pajama tank top pulled up so her large pregnant stomach was exposed, her hands resting on her stomach lightly. Eight months. It was surreal. In just four weeks the little girl she had been dreaming about for three years would be in her arms.

Piper was excited. When Phoebe had first announced that she was pregnant, back in December, Piper had eagerly offered Phoebe her maternity clothes, claiming that she had no further use for them. Phoebe had tried to shirk off by saying that the clothes weren't her style, but Piper insisted they weren't anybody's style, and that Phoebe wouldn't find much better. In the end, it was nothing Phoebe said that convinced Piper to keep her maternity clothes; instead it was Piper's own good news in January that she was two months pregnant with her third child.

To Phoebe's surprise, Piper seemed to be carrying her pregnancy with more grace than Phoebe could possibly hope to pull off. She had come to the conclusion that this was because it was Piper's third pregnancy, and the experience had given her an eloquence that Phoebe couldn't emulate. Sometimes, though, in her darker moments, she wondered if it wasn't more simply that Piper was happier than she had been at any point in her life since Prue died, while she, Phoebe, was...well...

Unhappy wasn't right. She was happy. If fact, she was darn well thrilled about the pregnancy. After all, the baby was all she had wanted for years now. Finally, a wish fulfilled. But as far as her marriage went...

She sighed. Coop was an amazing man. Kind and intelligent and soft spoken. Everything most women would want. But he just wasn't...he just wasn't what she had ever pictured for herself. Phoebe had always loathed the mundane, and even when she was young she often sought some semblance of a fairy tale in her every day life. Romance and love, to her, were supposed to be exotic, commanding, and absolute. With Coop she felt safe, and relatively happy, but the boat hardly rocked and there was rarely distress. Where was the fairy tale?

Most of the time, she tried to ignore the feeling of unease she had about her marriage. She cocked it up to hormones or personal issues or her past haunting her. She never discussed it with Coop and she only brought it up amongst her sisters in veiled talk to try to gauge what she should or shouldn't be feeling from their own experiences. I'll get over it, she'd tell herself. And a lot of the time, the feelings would pass.

Tonight, studying herself in the mirror, Phoebe was excited. She had finally decided which name she wanted to suggest to Coop if the baby was a girl (which she was fairly certain, it was). They had already decided that the middle name would be Odette, due to a night that stood out in Phoebe's mind as one of the better ones in their relationship.

They had gone to see Swan Lake the night after Phoebe found out that she was pregnant, and they had both loved it so much that when Coop suggested Odette as a possible baby name, Phoebe had immediately jumped on board. "But as a middle name," she'd said, lying on her back in the bed, not looking at Coop, but instead dreaming about the face of the little girl now growing inside of her. "I think it would be too much as a first name."

Coop had agreed without any fight, simply asking her what she thought an appropriate first name would be. "I'd like to use a family name," Phoebe told him, and she'd spent the past several months afterward refreshing her memory on the family tree and stories she had learned over the years. She knew more about the family history than Piper or Paige. Years ago, when she had written the spell to vanquish the Source, she had done a lot of research to try to pick out the most powerful witches in their line. Helena was one of them, though at the time Phoebe had been more intrigued by the story of Helena's younger sister, Honora. Honora had died at a young age in a demonic battle in which she stepped in front of a fireball aimed towards Helena. The story reminded her of Prue in some ways, and, at the time, of what she would do in order to protect Piper and Paige. What she would still do. Revisiting the story years later, she decided that she still liked all of the connotations she had with the name Honora, and was planning to propose it to Coop that night.

Maybe, she thought, it would recreate some of the joy we had at the beginning.

Coop came into the bedroom, flicking off the bathroom light as he entered, leaving Phoebe bathed only in moonlight as she stood in front of the mirror. She turned slowly towards him; he was staring at her from across the room, a queer expression on his face.

"What?" she said, pulling the tank top down slightly self-conscious.

"Nothing," said Coop. "I was just thinking...you look really beautiful."

Phoebe smiled, and crossed the room, kissing him lightly before climbing into bed. He stared at her for a minute or two more, and then joined her in bed.

"I've come up with a name," said Phoebe softly, breaking the silence in the room. Her hands played idly with hem of her shirt.

"What?" asked Coop. He rolled onto his side to face her.

"Honora," said Phoebe. She grinned at the ceiling, and then turned her head to look at her husband, excited to see his reaction.

"And you think Odette's too much of a name?" he said.

"Well we don't have to call her Honora," said Phoebe, her grin fading a little. "We could shorten it. To Nora or something."

"But it's so...Puritanical," Coop protested.

Phoebe fought the urge to roll her eyes, and instead countered with, "Piper's naming her baby Prudence Melinda if it's a girl."

"That's different," said Coop. "Prudence was your sister's name."

Annoyed, Phoebe rolled onto her side, facing away from Coop and, to her utter shock, found herself wondering if she and Cole would have fought like this about baby names. She gasped audibly and Coop's face immediately hovered over her, asking her if she was alright.

"I had a premonition," lied Phoebe. "I have to call Piper."

"What? Phoebe?" But she ignored him, grabbing the phone off of her night-stand and walking out of the bedroom.

In the living room, Phoebe immediately punched in the number for the manor, her hands shaking and her heart racing. She couldn't be thinking about Cole. Not now. The phone rang four times before it picked up and she heard Leo say, "Hello?"

"It's Phoebe," she said. "I need to talk to Piper."

"Phoebe," said Leo, "it's one in the morning. Can't it wait?"

"No," said Phoebe, tapping her foot nervously on the floor. She heard Leo sigh and then murmuring. In her mind she could see him shaking Piper awake, lying on his back, tired and exasperated, holding the phone out and grumbling, "It's your sister."

"Hello?" came Piper's voice; she sounded tired.

"Piper, I have to talk to you. I think I'm going crazy or something."

"Uh huh."

"Coop and I were talking about baby names tonight, and we kind of got in an argument about it and the first thing I thought of was whether or not Cole and I would have fought about baby names. What the hell does that mean? That's not supposed to happen!"

Piper sighed. "You're overreacting, Pheebs. It's not like you're still in love with Cole."

"I know that!" snapped Phoebe. "But I shouldn't be thinking about him at all. I never think about Cole."

"Well, I'm sure it's natural that you might think of him if you were mad about your fight. I mean, you were with Cole for a long time."

"Do you ever compare Leo to Dan like that?" Phoebe demanded.

"Huh?" said Piper.

"Dan!" said Phoebe. "You know. Neighbor Dan. You dated him."

"Oh. Um. No, not really."

"Then I am crazy!" said Phoebe.

"Well I won't argue with that," said Piper. "But not for the reason you think you are. Look, Phoebe, you can't compare what I had with Dan to what you had with Cole. I mean Dan was just...Well, frankly, he was a blip on the radar compared to Leo."

"So when you and Leo fight...?"

"I don't think I've ever had Dan pop up in my mind."

"Well, great," said Phoebe. "So I'm being disloyal to Coop by thinking about Cole when we fight."

"One time, Phoebe. It's not–"

"It's happened more than once," interrupted Phoebe. "I mean...I just can't help it, Piper. And I can't explain it."

Piper sighed again, loudly. "I wish Prue were alive," she said abruptly. "She'd be more helpful."

"Yeah," said Phoebe quietly. She'd never asked Prue if she had had a problem comparing other guys to Andy. Thinking back on it now, she wondered if that was why Prue had never had another remotely successful relationship. Prue hadn't wanted to...

"Fuck," Phoebe whispered. Her eyes watered and she sat down on the couch, suddenly feeling exhausted. "I settled, didn't I?"

"What?" asked Piper, sounding far away and suddenly worried. "Phoebe..."

"I settled for Coop. I was so determined to have a baby and to live out some perfect dream life and I...settled."

"Phoebe," said Coop, and Phoebe looked up to see him hovering uncertainly in the doorway.

"I have to go, Piper," said Phoebe.

"No, wait, Pheebs–"

But Phoebe hung up on her sister, clicking off the phone and setting it down beside her on the couch. "Phoebe," Coop said again.

Phoebe glanced up at him, pushing her hair up out of her face. She felt drained, but calm, somehow, as though she could handle the ax that was about to fall.

"Yeah, Coop?" she said, leveling her voice with some effort.

He looked at her, keenly, and she bit her lip. Just say it, she thought. Just tell me to go, or that you're going or whatever. Just say it. Instead, though, Coop just said, "Honora's fine for a girl's name," and then he turned and walked back into the bedroom.

That night, Phoebe slept on the couch.