Title: Who's Whitewash Is It Anyway?

Author: Wicked R

Disclaimers: characters and the universe belong to the WB. Doesn't matter, I'd only want Cole to be mine anyway.

Rating: R.

Genre: Angst/Romance.

Set: season 5, after "Sam I am."

Summary/Pairing: Phoebe doesn't want to help Cole commit suicide, but Paige has nothing against. Until…C/Paige friendliness, sorta.

"Where is Paige?" Piper was slightly irritated as her younger sister was supposed to help her with getting their potion supply up to date that night.

"Haven't seen her," Phoebe looked up from the papers she was reading, "in fact I haven't seen her today at all. Isn't that weird?" She stood up, "but I could help you with the potions if you want," she offered.

"No, it's not that. It's no major emergency. It's just that since her quest of becoming the super witch of all, well, I have to worry where she spends all that time at."

"She usually lets me know of developments. I can assure you, she achieved quite a lot lately," Leo tried to be supportive of her youngest charge, but also characteristically vague to try to protect her, "however," he scrunched his forehead, "I must admit, I haven't seen her much either in the last couple of days.

"Well, it's almost ten o'clock and neither of us had seen her since this afternoon. Don't you think it's time you checked up on her?" Piper asked him.

"She's not in trouble. I would've felt that."

"All the same," Piper gestured lifting her hand in the air, indicating her husband that her request was more like an order.

Leo shut his eyes, calmly concentrating on the life essences of his charges, "he is at Cole's," he concluded with a certain reservation in his voice when he opened his eyes.

"And she's not in trouble?" Phoebe tilted her head.

"Maybe we should go see," Piper suggested.

"Maybe we should give her the benefit of the doubt and wait until she comes home…" Leo tried.

"You can orb us or we can go by car," Phoebe established. Leo could be of much use when it was about gathering information or working on their confidence, but decisions were made by the witches themselves, that was always clear.

The white lighter, having his own doubts about Paige's latest blunders, sighed and took the two sisters by the elbow.

They found Paige kneeling on the floor of Cole's living room, holding the ex demon's head in her lap. His eyes were closed, his face covered with sweat and was of shade of grey and he seemed to be shaking slightly. The whole room was a complete mess, but it wasn't just the remains of the blast from when they tried to vanquish him. The floor was covered with all sorts of powders, potions, herbs and shreds of paper.

"Paige" Phoebe exclaimed, "what's going on?"

"I tried to vanquish him again."

"What?" Both sisters jumped.

"I know, I know, you said you wanted to rid the world of him on our terms, but what's wrong with vanquishing a demon, just because he agrees with it? It would've given him the peace he wanted too, instead of doing the next freakish thing his nutty mind propels him to do."

"Well, that's very noble of you, but to me it sounds a bit like the nurses they label black angels. Besides, you can't do it, or can you?" Phoebe knelt down next to her ex as well to see how exactly he was doing.

"Obviously not…" Paige complained, "you see I didn't even approach him. He was the one that came to me and asked me if we still had the potions we tried to vanquish him with because he thought they might work from the inside. If he drank them. So I got the potions. He drank them and nothing happened at first. He's only complained about being tired and sore all over. Then he started convulsing," Paige brought her sisters up to date, "so I thought the potions worked after all. That was two days ago. I kept orbing back to see if it was really true, but he comes and goes. He's sometimes better, sometimes worse. Then I made various potions to try to reinforce the effects of the first one, but when I saw they didn't work, I started to give him potions to try to make him better…"

"You messed this up pretty well, Paige," her older sister was getting angry at her again.

"I know," she agreed, "but I still cannot help feeling sorry for him…I'm sorry, there must be about six or seven different potions in his system by now…"

"Can you hear me?" Phoebe touched his cheek, but didn't get an answer. He was still shaking.

"Let me look at him," Leo walked over to them, opened his eyelids and peered under them, "he's not dying, but he is quite ill," he established.

"Thank you, we already know that, Leo," Piper started, "we need to decide what we are going to do. Vanquish, not vanquish? Help? Not help? Then we need to make the appropriate potion. The right way, this time," she emphasised, looking at her half sister.

"I'm sorry…" Cole blabbered, without regaining consciousness.

'"I'm going to stay here," Paige told them, "I think I had all my say in the subject," she avoided her sisters.

Nobody was going to argue with her. Paige had only been a witch for over a year and she sometimes acted too condescendingly in front of her sisters.

It took about two hours until Leo appeared again with a needle holding a dark liquid, "we still aren't able to produce anything that will surely kill him. That was a major point influencing the decision about what we came up with," he slowly lifted Cole's arm and gently pressed the whole contents of the vial into a vein in his arm, "that should be enough," he said quietly, in a voice that made Paige imagine how Leo could've behaved when he used to be a doctor, "now you have to wait," he orbed out.

The expression on Cole's face told her that this was not going to be pleasant for either of them as his body started convulsing again, "just a little longer," Paige whispered into his ear. She once thought it would make her pleased to hear him howl with pain, but she couldn't help feeling sorry for him again.

Very slowly the hurting began to subside and Cole felt his body mend itself on the inside. His eyes flickered open, "Phoebe?" Cole looked at Paige, seeming horrified.

"I'm sorry, it's just me, Paige,"

"What's going on?" he demanded.

"Shush, you need to rest," Paige said, "just rest. I don't think what happened will happen again," she said, trying to comfort him, reassuring him that at least his physical torment will not repeat itself.

"I'm not dead," Cole concluded, "and I'm not going to die anytime soon you mean?"

"Sorry to disappoint you."

"Never mind…I never should've believed in her, I know that now," he was referring to Phoebe of course with a wounded look and a hint of pout on his lips.

Like a kicked puppy's eyes, Paige noticed. It was the look she could never resist, no matter who was wearing it. It appealed to her mothering instincts, doubled with her witch instincts. It was the feeling that made her become a social worker. She squeezed her eyes shut not to see it, but it was echoing in her mind's eye. How was it that she ended up feeling sorry, when he was the one who possessed all those demonic powers and used them in so many immoral ways? Damn that man with those criminally attractive eyes that needed help. How was she going to explain this to her sisters? She already had so much to explain. Convincing them that they had it all wrong about Cole was going to be a challenge.

"Why are you good to me?"

Yes, good question, Cole, "cause you deserve a break once in a while," she reached out and took his hand, "I'm going to make everything right," and to Cole's incredulous look, she added, "trust me."

The End.