Charmed

Another Side, Another Story

V

Man Alive

(Part 2)

Phoebe knows she's dreaming. She can't see herself, but she sees the guy. The young man who has taken center stage in this erotic dream is definitely handsome. He has dark red hair, styled with gel and slightly curled, and bright green eyes. He has sharp, chiseled features, but they appear soft and inviting. They make her feel calm and at ease. She can tell by the way he is dressed that he comes from money. He wears a navy blue three-piece Armani suit. She starts to tear off his clothes. She craves his body. When she places her hands on his pecs, moves her hands across his abs, and grabs onto his tight glutes, she can't help but kiss him. He pushes her onto her satin sheets on the bed within the room. She turns him over and puts him on his back. Doesn't take her long to pull his pants off. She has him completely naked.

"You are the perfect woman," he tells her.

He's completely enamored. He flips her over, raises her dress, and before Phoebe knows it she can barely catch her breath from the great work he's putting into this sexcapade.

"I can't get enough of you," he tells her.

It isn't until he lifts her off the bed and places her against the wall while he breathes heavily into her neck that she grabs his face in her hands.

"You are all I've ever wanted from a woman," he tells her, looking deep into her eyes. He goes to kiss her.

A look of fear crosses his eyes as he falls back onto the floor with her on top of him. Something goes down his throat. It kills him.

Phoebe wakes up from her erotic nightmare with a start.

"Piper!" Phoebe immediately calls for her older sister.

Piper comes into the room with her pillow ready to smother her to death, but when she sees the fear on Phoebe's face and sees that she's drenched in sweat she tosses her pillow to the side and goes to stand beside her and hold her.

"What's wrong?" Piper asks. "What happened?"

"They're not nightmares," Phoebe tells her. "They're real, and I think I'm killing people."

~!~

Whitney stands in Graham's doorway. She looks over his room. He isn't here. He's been gone for a while. He didn't tell her where he was going, and his truck was still here. She remembers her conversation about Graham with Prue from last week.

"If there's a sign that Graham's going Evil," Prue had said, "being pulled by your brothers or father, you have to tell me so we can try to save him."

"You actually think that's a possibility?" Whitney questioned her. "Graham would never go Evil. He's not heartless. He couldn't, he wouldn't, kill someone just to gain more power."

"I'm less worried about him trying to become Evil and gain power," Prue said. "I don't know much about your family, I don't know what his relationship was with his brothers or his father, but I want to keep an eye on him because maybe they have answers to the questions you and him need answered. He would do what he felt he needed to get those answers."

"If they draw him in, if they tell him the truth, it might change things for him," Whitney said. "It might. It would also endanger his life."

Whitney was worried. She could lose him to death, to Evil, or to family. She had to remember that there was no such thing as pure Evil. Good could go bad. Bad could go good. Maybe, if he got involved with the others, he could change them. That thought was probably naïve though. How could he turn the others away from centuries of Evil? Well, if anyone could do it, it could be Graham...

"Don't worry," Prue told Whitney, bringing Whitney from her thoughts and fears. "This is a precautionary measure. Nothing more."

"I trust you Prue," Whitney said, knowing Prue would bring him to her before she took any drastic measures and wouldn't let her down.

They didn't continue that conversation because Leo entered the kitchen right after.

Whitney, holding the phone in her hand at her side, calls Darryl.

"Hello," Darryl says when he picks up.

"It's me," Whitney says.

"Hey Whitney," Darryl says. "We haven't talked in a while. I've been meaning to stop by. Is everything all right? I was about to head out. I've got work to do on a new case."

"I don't want to keep you," Whitney says. She hesitates in saying more.

"You can tell me anything," Darryl assures her. "You know I'm here to help."

How much can you help Darryl? I don't want to endanger your life, Whitney thinks.

"It has to stay between us," Whitney says. How many secrets can I keep? I'm forgetting what should be kept secret and who knows what these days.

"This is about Graham," Darryl says. She's hesitant to speak, and he can hear a hint of worry in her voice. Graham needs help, but Graham hasn't told her he needs help.

"All I need is for you to stay in contact with Graham," Whitney says. "I don't want him to be or feel isolated. His safety and his future might depend on it."

He might think she was exaggerating if it weren't for the fact that she and Graham were involved with the Halliwells. Darryl had been thinking about all of them the past couple weeks. He was an Inspector, and they were also in a similar line of work. The laws they had to abide by were, however, outside what many people would consider normal. Many people would probably find it all hard to understand, especially if they didn't really know what those laws or rules were. That's where Darryl found himself, but he would do what he could where he was, considering he didn't know if he wanted all the details and the full explanation just yet. This group needed normal or the natural, and apparently he was finding that he needed to be a part of the abnormal or supernatural.

"I'll get a hold of him as soon as I can," Darryl tells her. "Then, I'll go from there."

"Thank you Darryl," Whitney says. "I know you have work to do. I'll let you go."

"Good bye," Darryl says. They hang up the phone.

Darryl begins to think. Maybe, he might need to go into another line of work. He doesn't want to leave law enforcement. He thinks about making a lateral move. Based on the case file Andy left him, even though he didn't read it, and based on the case he just received, Darryl wonders if it might be time to leave for the private sector of law enforcement.

Darryl leaves home with the case file on the series of murders that have begun to crop up during this heat wave. Of course, he gained the case because they are not normal murders. If Andy were still here, he would've been all gung-ho about it, and Darryl would've given him a hard time. They had a great partner ship, he thinks as he smiles to himself, which is why he still hadn't let anyone replace Andy. He is headed for the next victim's place of employment to continue with the ongoing investigation: Crystal Landings.

"Was that Darryl?" Andy asks from behind Whitney.

"It was," Whitney says, turning around. She believes she hears a hint of sadness or pain in his voice, but she can't be sure. "I thought you were still with Prue." She kind of wants to change the subject unsure of how much of her conversation Andy heard.

"She had to leave for work," Andy tells her. "I've been training. Can't think of what else to do." Darryl's gone. My family's gone. My job is gone. These were the facts. Now, what did he do with those facts?

"Do you want to talk about it?" Whitney asks him, feeling bad for Andy because she believes he might find it hard dealing with his new life now that it is more of a reality.

"We should probably have a talk," Andy says. You were speaking with Darryl for a reason. It involves Graham.

"We have plenty more we need to discuss," Whitney tells him, turning from him and walking for her room. He follows her. She takes a sit on her bed, and he stands before her. "Let's start with you, and then we'll go from there."

You're good, Andy thinks. He smirks and shifts uncomfortably. We both have things we want to say and things we don't. A number of relationships hang in the balance of our exchange of information. You wonder if I am loyal to you, your brother, or the Elders. I am loyal to Prue. For that reason, I will start our conversation.