A.N. This is just an idea I had for a while but it didn't quite end up the way I had plan. Still, I needed to share it.

I do not own anything btw.

He had once told her that evil doesn't love. And yet, it was because of her love for him that she had sacrificed everything to follow the path of evil. She had left behind her family, her legacy, and everything that made her, well, her. She had abandoned it all because she couldn't lose the one thing that was completely hers.

"Cole," she murmured softly. "Cole." This time, a plea.

It was all terrifying at first. Evil, I mean. To be surrounded by treacherous beings who dreamt only of standing in your place, who didn't show any compassion or mercy. They couldn't; it wasn't in their nature. And she was all alone because none of them could be her friend. None of them were her family. But he was there. And where he went, so did she, for the only thing that held any truth in this hell hole was that Cole loved Phoebe and that Phoebe loved Cole.

It almost wasn't enough. But when he gently caressed her late at night, when he put a hand to her belly where their child was growing, when he looked deep into her eyes to make sure that, yes, everything was fine, she felt her whole being grow warm. Her burdens softened ever so slightly and that small relief was enough to turn her into an addict.

Evil doesn't love. And yet, there they were. Two lovers amongst demons.

"Cole," she repeated. Desperately. Hauntingly.

But love never lasted in hell. She didn't belong there and soon good and evil battled to claim her for their own. It hurt so much and she grew scared. Being surrounded by evil had made her afraid of suffering. She realized then that evilness was cowardness. It is much easier to give in to darkness than it is to struggle for goodness. But she was made of light and that is why Cole loved her above all else.

Evil didn't love. But it also didn't cry. Well, not really.

And she was crying now. And suffering. And she was in so much pain that she could hardly breathe.

Good had made its claim on her but the battle was not yet won.

It had taken Cole away from her. Vanquished by her sisters. And she had screamed and cried. She had fallen on her knees, begging for it to not be real, wiling to trade anything, even her soul, to have her love back. These were things that evil never did. Not for love.

And if evil doesn't love... but Cole did love her. Could he really have been evil? Had he really ever been? Or maybe it wasn't that simple. Phoebe had always interpreted the "do not" for a "can't". Maybe evil wasn't unable to love, it simply chose not to. After all, evil is afraid of suffering and to love is to suffer.

"Cole!" A scream. A heart-wrenching scream. A paralyzed thought.

Phoebe was subjugated by the sound of it. Desperate to hear and feel it, but unable to see and touch. She wished she could forget, tear apart her memories of her and him, together. Because he had imprinted himself in her mind and living with nothing other than his image was too big a punishment to bare.

That is when good began to lose the battle inside of her. For the first time, Pheobe was truly afraid. And she didn't feel strong. Or powerful. No. She felt weak and small. Broken. Defeated. This, in itself, scared her.

She hadn't needed anyone to feel strong before. Maybe she had taken her loved ones' support for granted. She had her sisters back but after only having Cole...even for the briefest of time... Never ending loneliness awaited her.

And so she stopped calling for the dead. She dried her tears and got up on her feet. She straighten her back. She hardened her features. She sealed her heart.

And shimmered away.

She had learnt and understood an important lesson that night. Evil doesn't love.

So she didn't.