Author's Notes: Thanks for all the kind words. I wasn't expecting such as response from what is basically a throwaway side fic! I hope you all won't get bored by Elise's activities. I didn't expect it too go on as long as it did, but hopefully I was able to flesh her out as a character while staying true to who we saw on the show. Also, the technology used in this stretches reality a bit, but hopefully not so much to the point that you can't suspend your disbelief. With that, on with the show...
Why We Stay: Elise
A nose for news. Thats what they call it. Or just plain nosy, if you asked my father when I was growing up. Ever since I was a little girl I always knew when something was up. My role model was Nancy Drew, and I carried a notebook with me wherever I went. I always knew who was dating who, and even though it was never me, it meant I had the ear of the 'in'.
And then I grew up. And here I am at the top of my profession. Head newspaper woman. Boss of bosses. All except for Phoebe Halliwell that is.
Oh, she respects me and all. But God knows, she pushes the limits like no other employee I've ever met. Don't get me wrong. Our circulation doubled in the first year she took over the advice column, and I try and take care of my talent. The only problem is, she doesn't test me like normal star columnists would. She doesn't demand more pay, a bigger head shot, or any of the usual. No, Phoebe Halliwell is a strange one. She just randomly and unpredictably wants time off, or away, from the office.
Hell, I can't say that even care about that. As long as she meets her deadlines she can take off to Timbuktu for all I care. But that's where my 'nose for news' comes in. I didn't get to be the head of the Bay Mirror for nothing. And Phoebe Halliwell reeked of a good story.
Not long after she started at the paper... come to think of it, the day before she started at the paper, when she helped the woman she replaced... even that had the faint aroma of oddity that plagues the entire Halliwell clan. Looking at her and her family, even I only saw a normal, ho-hum, group of people - at first.
But how many times could I hear "family emergency", have Pheobe disappear during an odd occurrence in town, or best of all, her inquiries into local crimes, before she draws my attention? Like I said. Nosey. That's me.
I don't know exactly what set me to it, but I finally decided to scratch that itch and find out just what the story was with Phoebe. I didn't need the newspaper's staff laughing at me if my hunch was wrong, so I decided to solo this one. If I was just imagining things, no one would know but me. But if I scored a scoop, well, that's just another feather in my cap! So I set to it.
A simple background check and call to some cops, who owed me a favor or three, revealed the Halliwell name on police reports going back as late as the 1920's when a relative showed up strangled to death at the family Manor. Evidence was circumstantial in every single case that the family showed up on. "Just passing by" according to one account. "Friend of a friend on another". But always a coincidental connection. Except for Phoebe's ex-husband.
She had just started at the paper at the time, and I had figured her to just be the type with a lot of drama in their life. Boy, how wrong, yet right, I really was!
Late one evening I was sitting at my desk, my brain fried after a long day of paperwork, and my head rested in one hand. My gaze passed lazily across my desk until landing upon a stack of bulky files. The name on one tab caught my eyes. "P.H." I hadn't pursued the matter past the police reports I had uncovered a year earlier and the whole matter had collected dust – literally.
Maybe it was a need to break from the rut I'd recently found myself in, but I couldn't help being drawn back to that story that my every instinct told me was there. Just below the surface. "Ah, what the hell, why not!" I mumbled to myself. I pulled the file from the stack and began to rifle through the papers with fresh eyes. By the time the sun was peeking over the grey waters of the east bay I had formulated a plan. And called in Jerry, the assistant editor, to cover for me for the day. I'd need some sleep before gumshoeing after the mysterious Phoebe Halliwell.
The next morning I waited impatiently for Phoebe to show up so I could get my plan underway. Phoebe rolled in around 10:30 that morning looking as fresh and stylish as any photo shoot we'd ever arranged for her. I watched the clock, waiting for the digital numbers to roll over a suitable time before I pounced.
"Screw it." I thought. "10:32 it good enough..." I weaved my way through the press room toward Phoebe's office and knocked briskly.
"Step One: Pin her down!" Very shortly Phoebe opened the door.
"Elise! Hey, it's a beautiful morning, huh?" She smiled in a relaxed manner, which told me that at the moment she had no "family" matters going on. "Dammit!" I thought. "Ah well, I'm sure something will come up. It's about that time. She hasn't been working at home for "personal reasons" for almost a full week."
I gave her what felt like a tight smile and nodded. "Let's hope it holds, but Bob – you know, our meteorologist- tells me there's a 40 chance of rain later this evening." At her blank look I realized my small talk was a little too forced so I tried to gloss over it and just kept talking. "Anyway, I won't keep you long, I'm sure you're busy helping some poor louse with his mommy issues, but I just wanted to let you know that you're probably going to have to stay late tonight..."
Phoebe's face fell a little bit, but still there was none of that instant squirming I'd seen so many times before when she wanted to avoid my request. "What for?"
"Oh, I just need to go over some marketing strategies with you. I wouldn't want my star columnist begrudging her new ad campaign!" I tried to keep my tone light. It seemed to work as I saw Phoebe nod enthusiastically.
"Oh, great! Y'know, I've been thinking we should rework that tag line on the ads. I mean, 'She Has All the Answers'? It always seemed a little cheesy to me. And I was thinking..."
I waved her off. "We'll talk about it tonight. Come back to me with some ideas on how to expand your reader base, maybe bring in the teen market, y'know? In the mean time I have to get on Gary's ass again. I swear, how hard is it to match the right caption to the right photo? I mean, the Pope may be old but he hardly looks like this Shar-pei, does he?" As I suspected, the moment I launched into a rant, Phoebe quickly slipped out of her own office under the pretext of getting coffee, allowing me to put off our "meeting"until this evening. I let a smile cross my face. "Works every time."
The rest of the day passed uneventfully, filled with the usual deadlines and rewrites, until it was just Phoebe and I left in the office. Truth be told, I was nervous and excited simultaneously. It was like the old days when I was first cutting my teeth as an investigative reporter, hunting down a story, setting up my mark, and breaking it. I just hoped that Phoebe hadn't come down with a sudden case of dependability.
As I approached her office I saw Phoebe reading over a "Dear Phoebe" letter. I lightly rapped my knuckles on the door twice before letting myself in. "Let me guess, is that letter from another Sad Sally in San Francisco? Or Oggled by Owen in Oakland?"
Phoebe removed her glasses and raised an eyebrow at me. "Bummed Betty in Berkeley, actually. But it is a woman. How did you know?"
"The pink tint of the paper tends to give that kind of thing away. Usually, anyway," I replied with laugh. I leaned on the chair in front of her desk. "So, what have you got for me? I'm talking to our ad man tomorrow morning."
Phoebe folded the letter and placed it back in it's envelope. "Well, I was thinking maybe we could book me on some morning radio shows? You know, those wacky morning DJ ones so we can tap into the teen demogra-" Phoebe was cut off by her phone ringing. "Just a sec."
"Just like clockwork," I thought as she flipped the cell phone open.
"Hey Paige what's... uh huh. She what? Uh huh... no..." I watched as Phoebe listened to her sister and her face turned from annoyed to disbelief. "But I wasn't even the one who did the... with the thing!" For just a second I saw what looked like panic cross her face but she disguised it well. "Look, I can't just..." she huffed a frustrated sigh. "Fine! Fine. I'll be there asap." Phoebe flipped her phone shut and gave a the sheepish grin I'd come to associate with her disappearing acts. "Elise, uh, here," she handed me a manila folder stuffed with a variety of papers. "This is the basic jist of what I wanted to propose to you. I'm sure whatever you decided to do will be just great. I mean, I saw what you did with Lucy's column last spring and-"
"No need to butter me up, you can go, no strings attached!" "Just me behind your car bumper," I added mentally. "Now go handle your family emergency, Phoebe!"
"Oh, thank you Elise! I don't deserve you, you know that?" she flashed me a smile as she pulled her purse over her shoulder and turned the corner out the door.
I watched her retreat out the newsroom doors before counting to myself. Twenty seconds later I pulled on my coat, grabbed my own purse, along with a small portable camera, and made my way to the parking lot. I glanced around the dark empty lot. I could hear the echoing clicks of heels, someone hustling along, and peeked my head around the building corner. There was Phoebe's car... but no Phoebe. I saw the very long silhouette of a woman's shadow – it looked like Phoebe's – retreating down an adjoining alleyway.
"Took you long enough!" I heard a familiar female's voice echo as the shadow made it's way down the alleyway.
"Yeah, yeah, let's just get this ridiculousness over with!" exclaimed Phoebe. My ears perked, I snuck my way as quickly as possible across the parking lot toward the alley, keeping my eyes on the shadow.
"Hey, I'm not the one who did the-" protested the woman's voice.
"-And neither am I. Let's just go get Piper!" snapped Phoebe.
"Yeees, ma'aaam," answered the other voice haughtily. Suddenly, the yellow light turned a bluish hue and as the blue light swelled Phoebe's shadow faded – no... dissolved? As the blue light faded as quickly as it had appeared, Phoebe's shadow did not return. Had they gone further into the alley? I peeked my head around the corner, hesitantly at first, then, seeing nothing, I peered my whole head out.
The alley was empty.
My feet followed my head out into the alleyway and I stood there, dumbstruck, for a moment. The alley was a dead end, no more than a parking spot for a dumpster. I took a few more steps in. "Phoebe?" I rapped my knuckles on the dumpster. I was at a loss since... well, I couldn't remember.
"Well, her car is still here," I reasoned. "She has to come back for her car sometime..." So I made my decision. I would stake out her car. I flipped open my cellphone and ordered a pizza from the usual place, and settled in to my car to wait.
Finally, after five hours of increasingly crazy late night talk radio I saw Phoebe making her way down the sidewalk adjacent to the parking lot. I quickly dove behind my dashboard, watching her through strategically aimed car mirrors. She paused as she approached her car, clearly noticing the presence of mine, and I noticed that she had changed her clothes to.. and outfit that looked distinctly like she had spent the night sweeping chimneys. I raised an eyebrow. "Definitely not typical Phoebe."
Phoebe shrugged off my car before moving on and unlocking the doors on her own, starting it up, and turning out of the parking lot. I quickly started up my car, careful to leave the headlights off, and took off behind Phoebe at a safe distance. Luckily, living in a metropolitan town like San Francisco meant that even at this early hour I had enough traffic among which to hide. I backed off considerably when we neared Phoebe's house and continued on after she pulled into her driveway. I doubled back around immediately, and saw the door close behind her as I parked across the street.
I watched as the silhouettes moved behind the curtains. Three women, the sisters I assumed, and one man made their way around the living room at first, but soon the lights downstairs went out, quickly followed by the dousing of the upstairs bedrooms.
And the house was quiet. I stuck around for another half-hour before finally deciding that I had missed the good stuff - whatever it was. So, I decided to pack it up and wait for another opportunity. "This old hound doesn't give up at the first trail lost," I murmured to myself. This time I'd have to try a different tact.
I soon procured a small tracking device, usually intended to lo-jack small personal electronics, and waited for Phoebe to be distracted. This took all of four hours before she was laying in to the copy editor about changes he had made to her latest column. As she took highlighter to paper, showing the editor how to do his job, I glided in to Phoebe's office, quickly opened up Phoebe's cellphone, and stuck the device to it's battery, and slipped it back on to her desk. I got out and was back at my desk by the time Phoebe was making her way back to her desk.
Now I could track the movements of Phoebe's phone, which may as well be attached to her, from both my laptop and my cell phone. I bide my time, waiting for something to raise a red flag. It had been an oddly quiet summer, and six weeks had passed before it finally happened.
That fateful Wednesday will be etched in my memory until the day I die. Which, thankfully, tuned out to not be that day.
Phoebe had left haste fully that morning, which peaked my interest, so I flipped on the tracking device. I watched as the dot blinked it's way along city roads, finally making it's way back to Phoebe's house. She'd made good time by my estimation, but beside that there was little unusual about it. The dot stayed there, blinking in place, for near two hours, but I continued to keep an eye on it as I worked at my desk. Suddenly, though, in the time it had taken me to glance at an ad proposal and back, it had disappeared.
My eyes quickly scanned the map. Had she moved? No, she was nowhere in San Francisco. "Thats impossible," I said to myself. It must have been a malfunction. Or the device had lost the connection. "Stupid piece of sh-" and then I noticed the red arrow in the corner of the screen, pointing southeast.
I zoomed the map out to the state level. Still just an arrow pointing off screen. I zoomed out to the national level. Still that blasted arrow! "This is ridiculous, this has to be a glitch!" Finally, I saw that dot. Blinking from the middle of the Brazilian Rainforest.
I stared at the screen. "Right." Out of curiosity, I zoomed in to the most precise location I could, and found the yellow text "Tenochtitlan Ruins" hovering over the red Phoebe dot. "Of course! Why not?" I grumbled, and tapped at the receiver sitting on my desk. "I knew I should've gotten that warranty."
I was moving my mouse to click the program off when the dot disappeared again. I zoomed out and saw the dot had returned to San Francisco. "That's better!" I zoomed back in and Phoebe had now made her way to the docks in the time that the tracker had apparently been malfunctioning.
I quickly grabbed my keys and sped off in my car to hopefully catch Phoebe at whatever she was up to. Thankfully, San Francisco is a relatively compact town, and I was able to make my way to the wharf in under ten minutes. I parked and checked my phone's tracking map. Phoebe was nearby, maybe two docks down.
I quickly made my way dashing and ducking along the shipping containers, doing my best to not be seen first. Finally, I heard it. "Duck!" I heard Phoebe shout and nearly obeyed the command, it was delivered with such urgency. Suddenly the crash of cracking wood. It had come from behind a pile of crates the size of a small house.
I stuck my back to the crates, pulled out my camera, and quickly crept to a corner between two pallets. I knelt down and peered around the corner. Phoebe, and what looked like her younger sister Paige, had their backs to me, and stood next to a splintered wooden box. About ten yards on, a hulk of a man with rust colored skin, a shaved head, and wearing tattered canvas clothing stood facing them. His skin was decorated in Aztec looking tattoos and his face wore a look like I'd never seen. It reminded me the snarl of a rabid dog, only with a far more intelligent malice in his eyes. "What in God's name..." I felt my lips mouth. I flipped on my camera and began snpping photos. It being digital meant it blessedly made no noise.
Was this some kind of meth-head? "What in the hell kind of business could Phoebe and her sister have to do with this guy?" And suddenly I was no longer in the world I thought I had been living.
The man, for lack of a better word, lifted his hand and a ball of fire appeared in the palm of his hand. I clicked another photo. He hurled it like a baseball at Paige. I was about to cry a warning out when she suddenly dissolved into blue lights. The mental image of a glowing blue alleyway flickered in my mind for a moment, it's meaning wanting to break through to my conscious thoughts. My finger continued to snap photos even as I was no longer paying attention to exactly where I was aiming.
But the action was too fast. I watched as the man, this thing, hurled himself at Phoebe, another fireball – yes, fireball, that's the term – formed in his palm, and it all went by too quickly for me to say anything – warn anyone. Hell, I didn't even know what I was seeing.
The beast rushed Phoebe, but before he could release his weapon Phoebe too rushed him, kicked out her leg and rolled back with lightening speed, sending him flying over her body, and crashing in to a stack of crates, falling on his own fireball. With a distorted scream like I'd never heard he suddenly burst in to flame. He flailed, desperately trying to douse the flames, but was gone in almost an instant.
Phoebe flipped her body upright, landing on her feet, which was made even more remarkable given the heels she was wearing. I noticed that Paige had reappeared at some point during that maneuver and she walked over to Phoebe who was brushing the dust from her coat. "Dammit, I just bought this this!" she exclaimed as if she'd just spilled a soda on it.
"Hey, at least it was a pretty easy vanquish. We didn't even need the spell!" replied her sister, equally non-chalant. "Hey, where's Piper, anyway?"
I creased my brow in confusion. I had just witnessed the impossible and the horrific and they were acting like it was no more than another day at the office. "What in the hell are you, Phoebe Halliwell?"
The clatter of bootsteps answered before Phoebe could. The eldest Halliwell sister rushed round the corner, coming to a stop at the crate where the man-thing had disappeared into flames. She skid to a halt, eying the smoldering splinters. She put her hands on her hips. "I ran all the way here for nothing? I thought it was a Power of Three spell."
Phoebe shrugged. "He just went poof when the fireball hit him."
"His fireball?" Piper asked.
"Wait a minute, didn't that entry say that he feeds on fire? Hellfire, specifically?" said Paige, obviously realizing something.
I, meanwhile, was trying to figure out just what I was hearing. Had I just witnessed murder? But even pyromaniacs don't 'feed on fire'. Not literally, anyway. "They way he looked, the way they're
talking about him-" makes him sound like some kind of-"
"DEMON!" shouted Piper, the only sister facing in my direction. "Demon?" I thought for a moment before realizing I must have been seen. "Shit!" thought, but before I could do or think another thing I felt something slam me to the ground by my head. I saw a blur of that same rust colored skin brush by my face and the smell of burnt flesh filled my nostril. I choked on it as the thick stench went down my throat, the taste assaulting my tongue. But it – a demon? It wasn't concerned with me.
I pulled myself around to follow where he had gone and I saw him once again facing the sisters. But this time, you'll call me crazy if you haven't already, his muscles had swollen and he had sprouted black talons. A low growling laugh rumbled from his throat as he seemed to survey his prey.
"Aw, great!" exclaimed Paige, again too nonchalantly for my taste. Was she batty or just stupid to not run?!
"Pheeeobee!" Piper almost whined in exasperation. "Now look what you did!"
"Hey, it's not my fault that you guys didn't catch me up on the research!" protested Phoebe.
I pulled myself to my knees. "Am I the only one here who can see the monster staring you down!?" I wanted to cry out but something told me, by the way the sisters were bunching together deliberately, that perhaps this banter served some kind of purpose. Stalling, maybe?
The demon, as they had called it, now roared and a stream of fire shot from his mouth at the women. "Whoa!" exclaimed Piper, who flung her hands up at the being, whose firebreath now hung frozen in the air, as did he on the ground. Phoebe leapt up now, and I swear, it was almost as if she were hovering a moment before kicking him in the jaw, sending him flying in to another stack of shipping crates.
"Quick, quick, quick!" said Piper, motioning for her sisters to join her side. Paige pulled a slip of paper from her pant's pocket. They gathered around it and I was now supremely confused as they began to recite a poem.
Child of fire,
Product of flame...
A poem? They're reading a poem?! I glanced back at the demon. He had begun to pull himself to his feet, and didn't seem to fazed considering the fall he'd just taken.
Take this pyre,
We make your feel pain...
Seriously?! Now is not the time for a silly rhyme! I pulled myself to my feet, adrenaline preparing me for whatever I would have to do next. I hardly noticed that the demon now seemed rooted to the spot.
Back to the mire,
Go back from whence you came!
The roar was ear-splitting despite not being very loud. It was unearthly, and no description I give could truly describe it. I watched as the demon was split in half by violent flames, his energy seemed to be being sucked into a black void at his feet. And with a sizzle of light on the pavement he was gone. The silence rang in my ears.
"Now that's more like it!" Paige said with an approving nod.
Phoebe glanced at her watch. "Oh, crap! My lunch has been over for, like, two hours now! Argh, Elise is gonna kill me!" The mention of my name brought my attention back to the sisters.
"Since when do you have set work times?" asked Piper, rather sarcastically. I raised my eyebrows.
"Whatever," Pheobe replied, narrowing her eyes at her sister. "The point is that I try to keep regular hours as best I can. Just because they need me over there doesn't mean I take them for granted! I mysteriously disappear enough as it is." I felt my lips turn upward just a smidge. 'I never thought you were playing hooky Phoebe, but God knows, I didn't expect this!"
"She's gonna get suspicious one of these days if I'm not careful. And I don't even want to think of what would happen with that kind of exposure! 'Read 'Ask Phoebe' or she'll turn you in to a toad!" Phoebe finished with a wiggle of her fingers. I realized, suddenly, that I'd best make a hasty retreat. Not because I was afraid of what she or her sisters would do to me, but because it was dawning on me that I shouldn't be here. As fascinating, and terrifying, as what I had just witnessed was, it was not a story that should be told.
I slowly turned myself around to try and exit my hding space. As I squeezed between two pallets my coat pocket caught itself on a corner and was tugged open. My camera fell to the ground with a clatter and I froze.
"What was that?" I heard Phoebe ask.
"Crap! Crap! Crap!" I cursed myself inwardly. I quickly bent, scooped up the camera. As luck would have it, a bilge rat scurried past my feet at that moment and soon skittered into view of the sisters.
"Oh, it's just a rat," remarked Paige.
Piper didn't sound so sure. "I don't know..." I stuffed the camera back in my pocket, slipped off my shoes, and quickly padded my way across the short, grimy, distance to my car. I slipped into my car and quickly drove off as inconspicuously as possible.
As I drove back to the office I glanced at my phone's tracking again. The dot was back at the house. "She must have transported... or whatever... back. Good. They didn't see me." I rubbed the palm of my hand across my face and was surprised when it came back wet. I looked at my hand. Blood!
A look in the rear view mirror revealed three long scratches across my right cheek. I wondered absently if demons could transmit some kind of demonic form of cat scratch fever as images of the last half hour flashed in my head. "I'll cross that bridge if and when it comes to it.." I decided not to go back to work for the day. Not with freshly bleeding wounds on my face.
I called my asst. editor when I got home, and slid on to the couch as I flipped my phone shut. A moment later I flipped it open again and booted up the tracking program. Phoebe's dot glowed, hovering over the newspaper's building. "How in the world can you go to work again after that?" I wondered. I flipped the phone shut again.
I sat on my couch, staring into space. "What am I supposed to do with this information? Sharing... no, exposing is the better word for it. Exposing what the Halliwells are... it just doesn't seem right somehow. Hell, I'm still not even sure what they are. Witches maybe? They said something about a spell." My journalist instincts were of no use - confused. I was at a loss. "Whatever they did, it didn't seem bad. Should I paint them as heroes?"
My cat, Pulitzer, soon hopped on to the couch and began to nuzzle my hand before moving down to my leg, finally reaching the corner of the camera still in my hip pocket. I looked down at her, considering things. "You're right Pulli," I said as I took the camera out of my pocket.
An electronic beep greeted me as I booted up the device and waited for the album to appear. I scrolled through the photos and the day's events greeted me in their grim hi-def detail. I lingered on a shot of the... demon... I still couldn't get my mind around that. Even in a still shot you could see the hell emanating out of the beasts eyes. Then the shot of Phoebe rushing her body in to harm's way against this evil thing.
I stared at my camera. I'd never buried a story in all my career. I'd always thought that my profession held a noble purpose. One for the public good. We keep the public informed. "But is telling this serving the public good?"
I sighed. I knew what I had to do.
I looked through the photos once more to be certain. And then I hit 'erase'.
BEEP
They were gone. I shook my head. "You owe me Phoebe Halliwell," I said to no one with a smirk. It was an odd kind of relief. Sure, I had a secret to keep – no, protect – now, but it was easier than the burden of releasing that kind of secret upon the world. I knew whatever it was the Halliwell sisters were up to it was for a good cause. I scratched Pulli behind her left ear. "Doesn't she owe me? Yes, she does!"
I turned off the camera, leaned back in to the cushions of my couch, and contemplated where things would go from here.
I watched as Phoebe attempted to sneak past the window of my office door, obviously off on one of her previously mysterious escapades. In the months since I had seen the secret life of Phoebe Halliwell, I had decided to keep up my facade. I had continued to investigate, following the women on occasion, but mostly I read between the lines of what Phoebe and, occasionally, her sisters, said. The sisters let loose more information than they knew when one had an inkling of the subtext of what they said.
I knew the best thing I could do for their cause, and especially for them, was to never let on that I knew their secret. They didn't need that kind of worry, nor did I want to live the kind of life I'd seen them and their Detective friend live with. It was both for them, and myself, that I will never let on that I know their secret.
I swung open my office door. "Phoebe!" I exclaimed in what I hoped was a convincingly annoyed tone. "Where do you thing you're going?!"
Phoebe shot me an apologetic smile, her eyebrow scrunched in worry. "I, uh, have to go home... family issues...?" Even she didn't seem to believe it.
Had she been anyone else... had I not known where she was really going, I would have reamed her. But instead, I gave her the lee-way. I still put on the stern face, though. "Just make sure that column gets in by four this afternoon! Okay?"
Phoebe nodded and swiftly hurried through the office door. I closed my office door and sat back. I wouldn't truly come down on her if the column wasn't in on time. We could always run an older issue. But I would have to give a harsh tongue lashing.
I sighed.
I had to fend off the occasional newsie claiming Phoebe was getting preferential treatment, but thankfully her column continued to bring in the circulation, so I had an excuse to give her leeway that other employees didn't. But I still had to grill her and put on the show so neither her nor anyone else suspected that I knew something.
So that's part of my job description now. I'm an editor, an actor... a protector. I sure as hell don't know what's going on, but my news nose tells me to leave well enough alone. And so I do my job, which lets Phoebe do her job, which – I think – lets us all live our lives in relative peace.
Which is why I let her walk out the door.
Next Time: The people around Paige.
