Note: You're right, Maggie, Phoebe had already killed Julie on the show, but when I started to sketch this story I hadn't watched that episode yet (remember, here in Brazil we're always a couple of months behind you), and I just couldn't let Julie remain unpunished.

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"You're NOT turning yourself in!" said Phoebe, clutching Cole's arm.

"Phoebe, it's me she wants, not Ben," he said, oblivious to the pain as her fingernails dug into his flesh. "If I..."

"If you put yourself in Julie's hands, she's gonna kill you both!" she yelled, on the verge of tears.

"Cole, this is not the answer..." Leo started, but he trailed off when Cole spun around and glared at him.

"Then, what's the answer, Leo? Tell me, 'cause I'll be glad to hear it! There's nothing in the Book of Shadows, the Elders can't help -- as usual -- and the summoning spell was useless. Do you have anything else up your sleeve?"

"I..." Leo tried again as Cole paused, breathing heavily.

"Wouldn't you turn yourself in if it had been Melinda?" Cole snapped.

Leo took a short intake of breath. The idea of his daughter going through this was almost physically painful. He put his hand on Cole's arm and said:

"I would. And I would turn myself in for Ben, too, if I thought it'd do him any good. But stop and think, Cole," he proceeded, gently pushing the other man back to the couch, while Phoebe sat by his side, clinging to him, "if it's vengeance Julie wants, she won't release Ben just because you turn yourself in. In fact, she'll be most likely to hurt him if she has you there to witness it." -- Cole winced and opened his mouth again, but this time Leo held up his hand -- "If you come up with a plan -- any plan -- that requires your presence in the Underworld, I'll orb down there with you. But I am not going to take you to Julie for nothing. That won't do Ben any good and will only hurt us all even more."

Piper silently sat by her husband's side on the coffee table, and Paige sat on the couch, by Phoebe's side. As Cole closed his eyes and silently pulled Phoebe towards him again, Piper and Paige exchanged a distressed look. Cole seemed defeated in a way they had never seen before, not even when he had brought Phoebe back from the Underworld, begging Leo to heal her. On top of everything, they knew that at least one thing he had said was true: they didn't have anything else up their sleeves, and they weren't any closer to rescuing Ben from Julie's clutches than they had been one hour before.

"You've got some nerve."

The five of them turned towards the voice that had lowered the temperature in the room by two degrees. A beautiful woman was standing there, her long dark hair up in a french braid, and her black eyes staring intensely at Cole. She was wearing charcoal-gray slacks with a sleeveless blouse to match, and had a blue Cashmere shawl draped over her creamy white shoulders.

While Piper tried to freeze her with no visible results, Phoebe looked at Cole with the corner of her eye: he was staring back at the newcomer in dread and astonishment, his eyes apparently locked on hers. Only when Phoebe started to form a fireball in her hand did he react, quickly grabbing her wrist and saying between clenched teeth:

"Don't." Phoebe fully turned to him, bewildered, and he added, never taking his eyes of the newcomer: "She'd kill you before you had time to throw it."

Then he cleared his throat, steadying his voice the best he could before asking:

"Mother, why are you here?"

The demoness that once had answered by the name of Elizabeth Turner narrowed her eyes and said coldly:

"Don't play innocent with me: you know damn well it never worked."

Cole's mind was working frantically, trying to understand what she was talking about. He shifted position and his knee brushed the bowl that he and Phoebe had used to try and summon Ben. When it sank in what they had done, his eyes opened wide and, swallowing hard, he said:

"You responded to the summoning."

"Only because I wanted to know what the hell you were thinking when you did such a stupid thing," she said, stone faced. "And I suggest you tell your story very slowly, 'cause those will be your very last words."

Cole had the sinking feeling that she meant it: even if she had never threatened his life before, she also had never made an empty threat, and he had the scars to prove it. Considering he had nothing to lose, and hoping that if everything else failed she'd at least spare the others after she was done with him, he took the only possible way:

"My son has been kidnapped and taken to the Underworld."

She didn't even flinch, still staring coldly at him, and he proceeded, starting to feel the knot forming in his throat again:

"We've tried every possible way to bring him back, in vain." As she still didn't react, he pursued, feeling drops of cold sweat forming on his forehead: "He's just one year old."

Deep down, Cole knew that his approach was lame, that this wasn't the way to get anything from the demoness standing before him. But he was struggling against panic, feeling more and more desperate at each minute his baby spent God knew where, in the hands of a rancorous demoness. The fact that the one he was pleading with wasn't known by her merciful dispositions didn't do much to reassure him. For more than a century, he had loved her and feared her with the same intensity. She had raised him, fed him, healed him, taught him how to survive in the Underworld. He owned her his life in almost every possible way, but he also had known hell at the times when her wrath had fallen upon him. What's more, this was the first time he was before her since he had switched sides and started doing good; he had no idea of how she saw him now that he didn't have his demon self, and didn't do evil any more.

Still getting no response from her, Cole took another deep breath and tried again:

"I need help."

"I'm starting to believe your brains were vanquished along with your powers," said his mother, and Cole's heart sank as he saw the fire storm blazing in her eyes.

"Mother, please, I..." -- his voice faltered, but he forced himself to proceed -- "I don't have anywhere else left to turn."

She watched him with an unreadable expression for a painfully long moment, then asked:

"Who did it?"

"Her name is Julie," Cole quickly said. His mother raised an impatient eyebrow and he added: "Tall, blonde, fast shimmerer, can throw power balls."

"The one who used to work for you?" she asked, frowning.

"Uh, yes," he said, surprised that she knew that.

She nodded silently, then asked:

"What's the boy's name?"

"Benjamin," Cole said, unconsciously increasing the painful grip he had on Phoebe's wrist, as he wondered if his mother had any intentions of helping him, or if she was just toying with him before killing him. He thought he had seen his mother flinch ever so slightly as she heard the name Ben shared with his grandfather. But it lasted no more than a split second, and after it was gone he wasn't so sure any more.

"Do you have a picture of him?" she asked, and Phoebe quickly reached out for a frame that was resting on the side table and handed it to Cole.

He tensely approached his mother and showed her the picture. It had been taken recently, and Ben was wearing the same yellow cap that Phoebe still held in her hands, laughing heartily of something happening behind the photographer's back. Cole's mother took the frame from his hand and watched the picture for a moment. When she handed it back to him without a word, Cole asked, puzzled:

"Won't you take it with you?"

"He won't be hard to recognize," she retorted, cryptically. Before he could say anything else, she added: "Wait for me here," and shimmered out.