"Okay, mister. You seem to be the one with all the answers, you wanna tell me what happened?" she asked, sitting up slightly. It was time for her to really know what was going on.

Joe took his time, tracing invisible patterns on her exposed thigh. "Well, I think it starts with why we're here."

Fiona shook her head. "I'm in hell. You told me that before."

"Nah, that was me teasing you. I'd told you the truth for the first few days, and you never seemed to like it. I just didn't want to fight with you every day, all the time, the same fight for all eternity. That wasn't what I bargained for."

"What you bargained for?"

"Well, you're the one who gave me the idea. You tried to sell your soul."

"And Papa Legba told me I had nothing to sell," she replied quietly. She'd made jokes, but she was ashamed of herself. She hadn't realized she'd really been that bad. Never in her wildest dreams did she think she'd been so heinous as to waste and ruin and deplete her very soul.

"I still think that was bum luck. Didn't really end too well for me, what with all your daughter's little witches hacking me up with my own axe after you put it in my head that I chopped you down and fed your body to the gators," Joe recalled bitterly.

Fiona knew she was supposed to feel badly about that but she couldn't seem to find that emotion within her. "Mhmm," was all she could reply.

"But as I lay bleeding there, I was confronted with the vision of that voodoo man, and with my dying breath, I sold my soul to him."

"I didn't have a soul, but you still did? How the hell is that possible?" Fiona wondered aloud.

"I don't know, but I did. And I got to make a deal. I sold my soul, so I have to do his bidding whenever he asks. That's where I was for the last few days. I didn't wanna go while you weren't feeling well, but I didn't have a choice," he explained.

She nodded. She understood. But she still wasn't sure what this had to do with Fiona getting her magic back. "So what did you get in return in this deal of yours?"

He smiled at her under those mischievous brows. "You."

Fiona's eyes widened. "Me?"

"You," he replied, kissing her hand.

"So that's why I'm here?"

"Yes."

She processed the reality of a man literally trading his soul to be with her. His love for her was even deeper than she thought. Not only had no one ever loved her like that before, but she had never even imagined that anyone could love her like that. She didn't know that kind of love existed anywhere, let alone for her. But another thought wrestled its way to the forefront. "But what does that have to do with me getting my magic back? Why didn't I have it at first, and why did I go through all that pain to get it back?"

"I have my suspicions about that, but first I want you to tell me something."

She tilted her head to the head to the side, waiting for his query. She'd answer him the best she could. He deserved that much.

"What happened to that last husband of yours?"

Whatever Fiona had expected, that wasn't it. But she supposed it was time to come clean about that. "Gerritt Vandenheuvel was a Dutch banker living in New York. And of any man I'd ever been with, he was the best suited for me. He was much older and he left me alone most of the time. He let me do whatever I wanted with his money. He gave me beautiful gifts and doted on me without being suffocating. He was very sweet to Cordelia during the times she was with us. She liked him and he helped her like me a little, too." Fiona smiled softly at the memory, pausing to remember Gerritt's kind blue eyes and the perfectly trimmed gray mustache. She shook herself slightly and swallowed hard in order to continue. "We got in a terrible fight one night. I was planning on going to Los Angeles because the plastic surgeons were better there, and at almost fifty years old, I needed a little freshening up. He didn't want me to get the surgery, and if I was set on it, he didn't want me to be so far away when he couldn't come with me. This was about seven years into our marriage. Just a few weeks shy of our seventh anniversary. Yes, that's right. That's why he was so upset. He didn't want us to be apart for our anniversary. It was one of the few things he ever insisted on with me. And…" She trailed off. She didn't like thinking about what happened next.

"And what?" Joe prompted.

"And I lost my temper—shocking, I know—and I was losing control of my magic a bit and the next thing I knew, his carotid artery was severed with one of the broken porcelain china I'd been throwing across the room."

"You said it was a robbery."

"That's what I had the police believe. I spit in their water glasses and gave them the evidence they needed to believe that I'd come home and found the house in disarray and my husband bleeding from his sliced neck."

"It was just an accident."

Fiona nodded, her eyes fixed on her own hands in her lap. She couldn't look at him right now. "I'm sure I'd have gotten rid of him eventually, but he hadn't given me a real reason to do away with him yet. I actually sort of liked being married to him. It was no great love story, but our lives fit together nicely. And he had all that money for me to use, and he made more every day. But he was the only husband whose name I took. And I kept it. Out of guilt, I suppose."

"You didn't really love him?" Joe asked, a tone of worried hope in his voice.

"No, of course not."

That answer comforted him. But raised another question. "Then why are you so upset by his death?"

Fiona did turn to make eye contact this time. "Because I lost control. Completely. I killed a man completely by accident. That lack of control is dangerous, and as the Supreme, I shouldn't have those problems. It's…shameful," she admitted.

"It's all over now, baby. You can lose control all you want with me. In fact, I prefer it," he told her with a smirk. "What could happen? You think you'll kill me again? I've already died twice. I'm through with that now." He took her hands in his and pressed kisses to her fingertips. "You can't do any lasting damage on me."

She bristled at the assumption that she was afraid she'd hurt him, as though that were her main concern, that she'd ever put his wellbeing above anything else. But she wouldn't focus on that now. "So I've told you what you wanted to know. Will you tell me why I had to go through that hell to get my magic back, since it seems you're in charge around here. All I am is a reward, a bargaining chip in your little voodoo deal," she said acerbically.

"You're everything here, Fiona. Everything is for you," he assured her.

"Oh really? The pinewood cabin and the constant stink of catfish is for me, is it?" she spat. Her mild annoyance had blossomed into more. Fiona got out of bed and violently opened the wardrobe to put some clothes on. She didn't want to be nude and vulnerable with him right now. She'd been vulnerable enough. And now that she had her magic and her strength, she was disgusted at her weakened self.

Joe watched her get dressed, wondering whether it was worth it to refute her accusations. In time, she would understand. She'd have to understand. He'd make her understand.