Author's Note: I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who's been reading and giving me feedback. It's greatly appreciated, I assure you. And sorry about the infrequent updates. I'm trying to be more consistent and frequent with them, and if all goes well, this story might even be finished by spring of 2006.
"Hey! It's okay, it's me. Remember me?" Cole asked, moving forward. He shot a glance back at the attic door to see if Phoebe or Piper was going to come respond to Maria's scream, but apparently they weren't home. Interesting. I wouldn't trust this girl alone with my priceless home and one of the most valuble magical artifacts in existence, but maybe I'm missing something here.
"Don't . . . ever . . .do that again!" Maria exclaimed, her eyes wide. She was still maintaining her distance from him, but at least now she wasn't screaming anymore. "What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to talk to Phoebe. Where is Phoebe, by the way?" Cole asked.
"Dentist," Maria said. Cole nodded and began to walk further into the attic, but Maria stopped him short. "Could you just, you know, stay over there?" she asked, not taking her eyes off him.
Cole sighed, but backtracked his steps. "You know, you can be scared of me all you want, but you're wasting your time," Cole pointed out. "I'm not going to hurt you."
"Yeah, okay. Well, I appreciate that, but I'd rather we just kept our distance for now. You know, in case you start to feel a little nostalgic about your good ole days of maiming and killing people. Okay? Fantastic."
For someone who's supposedly so terrified of me, this girl's surprisingly unconcerned about the possibility of offending me, Cole mused. He was about to reply, but was interrupted by the ringing of a cell phone. Maria looked down at her purse and groaned.
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"Hello?" Maria said into her phone, continuing to shoot sideways glances at Cole.
"Hey Maria. It's Liz."
"Hi Liz. Look, now's really not the best time to talk. Can I call you back later?"
"Now, is that later as in this afternoon, or 'later' like you came back later for your shift last night, as in not planning to call me back at all?" Liz asked, her voice an odd mixture of playfulness and annoyance.
"Didn't Michael tell you why I was gone?" Maria asked weakly.
"Yes Maria, he did, but since you've never allowed 'PMS' to get in the way of work before, I'm thinking there's something else going on here."
Maria squeezed her eyes shut briefly, cursing Michael. PMS? God Michael, talk about doing me a non-favor!
"Troubles in teen paradise?" Cole asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Who's that Maria?" Liz asked. "Are you with another guy? Wait, is that the big secret Maria? You're not . . . you're not cheating on Michael, are you?" Liz's questions crackled through the phone at Maria-esque speed.
"No! I am not cheating on Michael, Liz. The guy's just a friend of a friend. Now I promise I'll explain everything later, but I really can't talk now. We'll talk tonight Liz, I promise you. Just give me a few hours."
Liz sighed. "All right Maria, whatever. Bye." Maria heard the click of the phone disconnecting. Liz sounded really annoyed there, Maria thought. She looked mournfully down at her phone.
"Who was that?" Cole asked, raising an eyebrow.
Maria didn t answer Cole's question; she merely glared at Cole. "Thanks a lot," she muttered, too annoyed with Cole to bother being scared of him at the moment. These were exactly the kinds of questions she did not need being raised at the moment.
Cole looked nonplussed. "I think I'll just come back later when Phoebe is around," he said.
"Best news I've heard all day," Maria retorted. She watched Cole intently until he left in the same way that he'd appeared, seeming to shift the space where he had been for a moment after he'd disappeared. Maria dropped down on the couch and picked up the book she'd been looking at before Cole had made his entrance. She supposed she could call Liz back right now and get everything straightened out, but what would she say? I can't believe I actually promised Liz that I would explain everything to her! Now what do I say when she wants an explanation? It's not like I can tell her what's been going on, not after what I also promised Phoebe and Leo. I've really gotta learn to shut my mouth whenever the word 'promise' starts to come out. Maria tried to push her personal issues to the back of her mind and focus on finding the year of the dragon ritual, but still, Maria's mind wandered of it's own accord back to the disappointment in her friend's voice as she got off the phone.
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When Piper came home, she was surprised to find the house empty, save for Maria, who was rifling through books in the attic. "Uh . . .hi Maria," she said upon reaching the attic. "Anything I should know about?"
"Just a demon," Maria said casually. Too casually, in Piper's opinion, considering how new this all was to her. "Phoebe had to go to the dentist, so she asked me to start the research."
"I see. How's that going?" Piper asked. She was still absorbing the fact that Maria was hanging out in their house alone looking through their stuff. Sure, she was trying to learn about some demon, but still. Piper still liked her boundaries, and letting a girl they had known for less than a week have free reign of the manor was cutting into them.
"Not bad, actually," Maria replied.
"Care to fill me in?" Piper asked.
"Well, I'm not really sure how everything fits together yet," Maria said vaguely. Piper squinted at her. From what Piper had seen, Maria was pretty much a straight arrow: she said what she was thinking, often loudly and with plenty of opinion thrown in. Her not wanting to fill Piper in on a demonic threat was odd. Piper decided to let it go for now though. After all, she still wasn't eager to get back into the business of vanquishing demons, and the longer she could stay out of the current issue of the week, the better.
"Okay, well, let me know when you do, " Piper said, pasting a bland smile on her face. "Anything else interesting come up while I was gone?"
"Cole stopped by," Maria said, her voice darkening. "He was looking for Phoebe, but she'd already left by the time he got here. He'll probably be back later." Maria didn't sound too thrilled at the prospect of Cole's return, Piper noted to herself.
"Look, Maria," Piper began, "Cole's around a lot. And we've looked into in his background plenty, believe me. It's not like we haven't worried about his Belthazor side coming out. But we trust him, and he's not going anywhere. So you've gotta be able to get along with him, or at least deal with his presence."
Maria looked at her from over the book she was looking through. "He's a demon. When did you guys become okay with that? When Phoebe started making out with him?"
Piper sighed. This conversation was all too familiar to her. Probably because you had similar ones with Prue for half of last year, she thought. That memory began to spur new ones however, so Piper pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind and concentrated back in on Maria. "Look, Maria. He's here to stay, so just deal, all right?" Piper realized after she had spoken that her reply had come out more rude than she had intended, but she was becoming more than a little weary of this whole conversation. After all, she'd had to suck it up and deal with Cole before she trusted him too, and that was knowing that he had been trying to kill Phoebe for months beforehand.
Maria's eyes widened. "Uh, okay," she said, eyeing Piper as if she had just grown a third arm or contracted some strange skin ailment. "Sorry."
"Look," Piper said, a bit more gently, "my point is just that he wouldn't be in our house if we didn't have good reason to trust him. I'm not asking you to like him, I'm just asking you to accept the fact that he's probably not going anywhere anytime soon. Trust me, the sooner you learn to accept it, the happier you'll be."
Maria nodded, pursing her lips. She still looked annoyed about the whole thing, but Piper made an inner decision not to care. She would come around in time. And if she doesn't . . . well, that will be her problem, not mine. "Look, I'm going to go put the groceries away. You want something to eat?"
"Actually, that sounds great. All I had was half a pancake three hours ago. Besides, I could use a break." Maria shut the book she had been paging through and stood up. Piper was surprised. When she'd asked Maria if she wanted something, she'd imagined bringing something up to her, not sitting down to lunch with her alone. However, Piper recovered herself and smiled.
"Great," she said. "Just . . . follow me."
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Once she had finished with her dentist appointment, Phoebe had gone shopping. Unlike Piper, though, Phoebe had been shopping for items of a more magical character. She'd made two stops, the first to her favorite magic shop. The place was filled with everything a witch could want: books, crystals, plenty of potions ingredients, and a bright, cozy atmosphere. The place catered to your average citizen interested in dabbling with the occasional love spell as well as to real witches, so it wasn't as musty or out of the way as most of the places Phoebe had tried out. She picked up a bunch of crystals there and gotten plenty of potions ingredients to help restock the Halliwell supply. When she went to the counter to pay, she received a welcoming grin from the cashier.
"Phoebe! Good to see you again. You haven't been by in a while, and I started to worry that something had . . ." the girl lowered her voice, "you know, happened to you."
Phoebe gave the girl, who Phoebe happened to know was the daughter of the store's owner, a sad smile. "I wish I could say that you were wrong, Melissa."
The girl, Melissa, gave Phoebe a curious glance, but didn't inquire further. Phoebe was greatful.
Phoebe's second stop was a place in Chinatown. She had only been there twice, although she knew Piper made trips there sometimes. She knew Piper got some of the rarer potion ingredients in her stock from the place, but Phoebe had never had an eye for picking out the subtleties of what distinguished a good mandrake root from a bad one and all that, so she was kind of clueless as to what they needed most. Phoebe compensated by picked up a little of everything. She had no idea what the potion for Aolong Dao might require, but she figured if they needed any weird ingredients, this would be the place to get them.
After that, Phoebe went back to the manor, loaded down with witchy goodies. She was actually kind of excited to show them off to Maria, who seemed to be taking an interest in figuring this guy out. Good for her, Phoebe thought, smiling to herself. She opened the door and was immediately greeted by Maria herself, looking very excited.