Chapter 36: The Power of Love

"Andy!" Prue murmured so that only she could hear. The moment her eyes caught the title of the currently opened page, she immediately knew what was going to happen. But on the other hand, she wasn't really sure and yet didn't want to believe that thought.

"Let's see now… The Power of Love. Love is the strongest and greatest power of all others. Make the best use of it. Sounds like Grams is trying to show us her plan, huh?" The youngest Charmed One read the page out loud, so that even the warlock who was standing in a corner and was afraid to come near the group could hear it.

"Strongest and greatest? Even when comparing to the Power of Four? I think there have to be some perfectly good explanations for this. What do you think, Leo?" Piper asked her husband, but she received no answer. "Leo?" Immediately she turned around just to find him nowhere to be seen, her mind ran through millions of wonders why or where he could have possibly gone.

"The Elders have called him." Prue answered, as she moved closer to the Book after reassuring and convincing herself so hard to share her ideas with the others. "But if this page is a message to us from Grams then I think we'll need to get him back."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

In a cave in the Underworld, a romantic scene was taking place. The Source – who was known under the name of Cole – was kissing passionately the once lower-middle Charmed One, Phoebe, when a demon shimmered in. Not really surprising, the demonic couple were too busy making out that they didn't even notice the new comer's presence, not until he cleared his throat and made both Phoebe and Cole jump. "My Lord, I came here immediately when I received your call." The demon bowed at his boss as his hand was placed on his chest, showing his respect. Slowly the half-human demon transformed into Belthazor, wanting to gain not only his respect but also fear.

"Arassin, we've been waiting for you." The current Source of all evil responded formally, walking toward his servant. Hearing her husband's sentence, Phoebe's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "My king, as far as I know, he's not in our plan." She asked in the most formal voice that she could think of, wondering if he was hiding something from her. Turning around, Cole – in the form of Belthazor – frowned for less than a split of second, then, pretended like he had just remembered something he had forgotten, the Source spoke, "Ah, that. I see I haven't told you about my other plan, have I?"

"Your…other plan, my lord?" Phoebe questioned, slightly shocked. She couldn't fully believe that she had known nothing about his actions until that demon revealed it. And the witch could also have sworn that she had seen Cole wincing at her unpleasantly.

"I have been thinking about that for awhile, since we were informed about the Power of Love. I admit our previous plan was excellent, but the result is not guaranteed anymore, for we all have known the remaining Charmed Ones are wicked, and crafty; who knows what they can do next? So my plan is that we take them by surprise." Turner stated, clenching his left fist tightly, imagining of his enemy being crushed into nothing more than dusts.

"But…my Lord, if so…" Phoebe troubled. Although that idea of her husband was marvelous, but there were still some voices shouting in her head, telling her to do something to prevent that from happening; and they were too strong for the lower-middle Charmed One to shoo away. Realizing his wife's stumble, Belthazor questioned, "So…?"

"I…ah…just…just that if…we have this demon kill the Charmed Ones for us…I…it's…ah…" The psychic stammered badly, her mind confused. Then unexpectedly, from the mess of thoughts, one stood out, so fast that she didn't even have a chance to fight back.

"I just…want to enjoy the feeling of killing my own sisters…and, my Lord, I also want to see how my hero would smash them into nothingness." The last sentence slipped out of Phoebe's lips naturally and seductively, as she moved closer to her king while smiling bewitchingly, and that was what made the half demon soften. Changing back to human form, Cole grinned evilly, waving his hand at the demon, signing for him to leave. As soon as Arassin shimmered away, the Source leaned nearer to his wife – who was wrapping her arms around his neck – and whispered into her ears, "So shall it be". Phoebe smirked, then closed her eyes, expecting for another kiss. But then, all of a sudden, the psychic was pulled into a premonition.

----Premonition----

The next thing she knew, she was standing in a deserted graveyard. Everything was covered in a pure red light as if there had been a sanguinary battle; and on the horizon, the biggest form of the sun was taking place. The wind was blowing brutally through the rustling leaves, made the trees shake violently as if they were dancing in the music of the ghosts. Leaving her fear out of her mind, she then started to walk through the graves – or she could say, her legs were controlling her body. Suddenly, like a fastened forward movie, in a blink of an eye, she was already standing in front of a headstone. Moving closer to take a clearer look, she tried to read the words on the tombstone. And the name of its owner made her heart break as the realization hit her like one of Prue's telekinetic blasts. "Cole Turner, 1985-2002" She read it out loud, and it was also when she was pulled back to reality.

----End of Premonition----

Phoebe gasped, her head was filled with images, emotions and confusion, while her ears were ringing like mad. The situation was really bad for her, but leaving them all behind, she could feel something else, something more joyful. Never before had the psychic ever been in a premonition that she was the person in the scene, which meant she could feel the character's feelings, sad, angry, everything. 'My powers are growing!' she exclaimed mentally. But her happiness for having her powers grown didn't last long, when Cole's voice interrupted her, "What did you see?" He asked loudly, knowing that his wife had just had a premonition. His hands were placed brutally on her shoulders, intending to make her look at him.

"I…ah…" Phoebe stammered, didn't know whether she should tell him the truth or not. The premonition she had earlier seemed to make her bad side slip beside for a moment, gave up the place for the good Charmed One. "I saw…the Charmed Ones…they were…they were…dead…" she lied, although she had no idea why. It was when she looked up and met her husband's eyes, and immediately the 30-second-ago Phoebe was back. But it was too late to recover her statement about the premonition. Raising his eyebrows, Cole grinned evilly, "Then we'll be the one who have that pleasure to kill them." He stated, but not before he gave the still-confusing Phoebe a passionate kiss.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

When the Halliwells' whitelighter orbed in the hall for Elders and Whitelighters in heaven, he saw a group of Elders already standing, apparently were waiting for him. Looking around searching for something, Leo realized she wasn't there. "Where is she?" he asked in anger.

"She is not here." One of the Elders answered calmly, only to get on his nerves.

"You told me she would!" Leo responded, feeling betrayed. But no matter how angry he was, he must keep his head and couldn't be impolite to his bosses. They promised!

"She will, but not now. The Charmed Ones need to do it on their own first." Another Elder replied, still with the calming boring tone of voice.

"You don't understand, they need guides! Only a few words wouldn't help!" The whitelighter retorted loudly, trying his best not to just shout and punch at their faces. He couldn't even think that he knew the Elders anymore, they sometimes seemed to care so much about the witches, but there were times when he felt like they just wanted to ignore and let Destiny decide everything. Just as his anger was too much for him to bear and he was about to explode with it, a voice suddenly echoed behind him and made him turn around.

"Calm down, Leo. I'm here now and everything's going to be alright." There Penny Halliwell stood, solid and firm, in front of everybody's surprise.

"Penny? I thought…" As the whitelighter was asking, an Elder cut him off rudely, "Penelope, what are you doing here? You're not called." He scowled at the Halliwell angrily, displeased with having somebody disobey his orders.

"I know, I know, I'm not supposed to turn up, but you actually think you're going to ban a grandmother from helping her own grandchildren?" Penny Halliwell answered sarcastically, as she moved closer to the group. An Elder who was standing at the back slowly came to them, lowered his robe's hood and exposed his true identity.

"Call me Alexander." He introduced. "I understand your situation, that you want Penelope Halliwell to come down to the reality realm to help the Charmed Ones with the solution for the Source problem. But the Power of Love is more complicated than you may think. Its complexity is so great that we cannot explain all to you, we can only say this power has to be activated naturally without any form of guides or detailed instructions. And that is the reason why we declined your demand to have Penelope sent down to Earth." Alexander determined in his slightly bossy voice, in front of Leo and Penny's surprises.

Just as the whitelighter opened his mouth, purposed to retort, Piper's voice calling his name echoed in his head. "I…ah…my charge needs me. I gotta go." He informed fast, trying to concentrate on the image of his wife, in order to orb to where she was. He was so scared that something had happened to her that he even forgot to bring his grandmother-in-law along. Penny tried to catch his attention by yelling his name, but he was long gone before she could even think about doing it.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"Hey Andy." Joan greeted, as she walked into room numbered 43, where Andy Trudeau was laying unconsciously. Joan was working as a nurse in the Bay General Hospital, and she accidentally was assigned to be with the whitelighter. People would have thought about her as his nurse and nothing else, but there was something behind the scene that they didn't see. Joan fell for Andy in the first time she saw him, that was the truth. No matter how many times had she told herself that he was married, she just couldn't stop her heartbeat from going more than crazy every time she saw him. He was definitely her secret love, the one who truly controlled her heart.

"Sorry I'm late. There've been a traffic jam on my way to work. You wouldn't believe me, but at that time I just wished that I had had wings so that I could be here with you immediately." She apologized, although she knew Andy couldn't hear it. Admiring the man in her dreams amorously, Joan started to imagine how it would be like if they were together. C'mon that's so lame! She ejected the thought right when it began to spread out her head.

"Yesterday your wife came. She sure looked nervous; she just stood in front of your door without doing anything! I guess she just didn't want to disturb you or she couldn't stand the sight of you lying in bed. You're so lucky to have a wife like her, you know that Andy?" She related as her mind drove back to the day before, as she tried her best to smile naturally, but it turned out to be a reluctant one. Finally Joan just gave it up and decided not to do anything but sitting next to Andy.

The next few minutes flew by faster than ever, to Joan's surprise, since she hadn't done anything other than staring at the man she fancied. But work was work; it was time for her to start a new day. "I'll be back after lunch." She guaranteed, mostly to herself, as she stood up and prepared for her leave. Just as she was picking up her coat, Andy moaned, moving a bit as he turned over to both of his sides. At first they were so slight that the nurse didn't really pay attention to them, but then the moan became louder and made Joan notice it. Oh…oh my God… Staring at Andy in disbelief, she dropped everything she was holding, included her jaw. It was something she couldn't ever imagine of happening. At least not that day.

"I…ah…doctor…right…must…I…ah…call the doctors…" The blonde stammered extremely badly, trying her best to move her legs, and fortunately succeeded. She wanted to make the only thing stay in her mind was that her love was becoming better and that was a good thing, but as she was running like mad through the corridors, a thought suddenly entered her mind. Andy waking up can only means one thing; it means the end of my wonderful times being together with him has come! Oh shut up! Shrug it off! His life now is much more important than anything else including my happiness!' Joan shouted mentally in order to shoo the bad thoughts away, just as she reached the doctor's lounge.

Quickly related Andy's situation, Joan led Dr. Gluck and his group to his hospital room. But when she opened the door, the only thing she saw in the room was a very transparent figure, apparently leftover of a shimmer. And obviously, Andy was nowhere to be seen.