Till Death do us
(Part two)
Paul and Prue got to the mausoleum expecting to find Cole there, but he wasn't in it, and even after they had waited for hours he never showed up. Prue had even tried calling for him, to no avail. By now, it was time to go to the funeral, and Prue couldn't move. She was wondering if her staying there had to do with wanting to find him, or if it was her way to delay the inevitable. She couldn't accept her sister's death. She knew that all the others had realized that, even though she had thought that she had gotten over this attitude about death. But right now, she didn't care one way or the other about being right or wrong. She was just angry.
Paul took her hand at last, and said that it was time to go. She still resisted for a moment, then she relented.
Paul, as they were walking toward the nearby church:
"Prue, I know it's difficult, but I think that you should let it out. It's not healthy what you're doing."
Prue:
"I can't! It seems so impossible that I can't accept it. After all we've been through, that she died of an unexplainable death, and I wasn't even there with her. I couldn't save her."
Paul wrapping his arm around her, pulls her to him and then continues:
"Prue there is no way for you to know that you could have done anything. The doctors all said that she didn't suffer any trauma at all. It had to be an illness, even though they do not know which, but you most probably couldn't have done anything."
Prue just shrugs and pulls herself away from him. She feels so angry, but in the end, she's angrier with herself than anybody else.
After the service, in the cemetery, the family was around the grave and Prue thought that she saw him from afar. She almost went to him, but when she looked again, nobody was there.
The look on their faces, he didn't want to see. And mostly, he didn't want them to know how responsible he was for her death. Unable to stand this sight anymore, he shimmered back into their room. Seeing the place where they had been so happy made the anger boil in him and he just trashed the room violently. After a moment though, realizing what he was doing, he fell on his knees, crying for the first time since she died…
By the time they came home, he was gone, but when Prue went to her sister's room, she found the place devastated and understood exactly what happened. Instead of anger though, all she felt was sorrow. Then, the tears that she had not cried even at the funeral started rolling down her cheeks. It was as if seeing her room like this really told her that she was now truly gone, and her sobbing became louder and out of control. Piper, alerted by this, came into the room also. At first she just said:
"What the?"
But then she saw the devastated expression on her sister's face and she forgot all about the disaster going to her quickly. Now at least they could share the pain. After a long moment, spent, they looked back at the room, almost feeling the pain and anger that had been expressed here.
Piper:
"Oh my God Prue! What's going to become of him if that is how he reacted?"
Prue:
"I don't know," she answers in a little voice. "I really don't know."
Back at the mausoleum, Cole just sat quietly, all anger gone. Now, he only felt pain. That's the moment his father chose to appear to him again, but when he tried to tell him about his mother, Cole just looked at him with a hard expression and shimmered away. For the next week or so, his father came back to the place many times, always hoping that he would find him, but he never came back and Benjamin was thinking that maybe, he had left forever. Who knows what he would be doing from then on?
By then, Prue and Piper with Leo's help had begun their lives without her. They had managed to repair the damage Cole had done to the room and had closed the door to it. Each of them passing in front of it every day was tempted to enter it, but they couldn't bring themselves to do it afterward.
Meanwhile, in a very different place, Elizabeth, Cole's mother, was thinking of her victory with delight. She had been watching the house and her only disappointment was that until now, she had not seen him back there. But she knew that she was holding the key that would bring him back to her…
She moved toward an alcove where there was some kind of a bed. And on it, Phoebe was lying down, totally immobile, apparently as dead as she had been the week before when she took her there. But in reality, Phoebe was wide-awake, only unable to talk or move. The sensation was torture, and she knew that his mother enjoyed her pain. She didn't remember exactly when or how, all she knew is that sometimes days earlier, she had awakened in this place. She had no idea how she had gotten there. And ever since, she had tried to keep hope that someone would come and rescue her. But by now, she had become aware that no one knew where she was or that she was even alive. Elizabeth had enjoyed telling her all about the funeral and how she now was under her control.
Every so often, she would return like now, sometimes saying nothing and other times, venting her grievances against her. Of course Phoebe wasn't able to respond to these accusations and recriminations. But what made it even worse, was the thought of Cole's pain and of her child's terrible destiny. Elizabeth had also been very eloquent on what her intentions were for him:
"If Cole doesn't come back to me, at least I'll have his child, and from what I've gathered, he might be even more powerful than his father is. But don't keep your hopes up little one," she had said. "He will come back to me, as he was before and I'll have them both."
Phoebe was getting more desperate after each of those monologues of hers. She knew that she was revealing all of her plans to her because there would be no way for Phoebe to tell anyone. She had been let out of the paralysis only long enough to eat and then put back under many times. At those times, at first she had hoped that she could escape, but Elizabeth had made it clear that even if she did, there was nowhere to go. The place where they were was probably not even in their world, and Elizabeth had also told her that a dark priestess had shielded it even from the dark side, as a favor to her. Still, through all this, Phoebe couldn't understand how she would make him turn to her. That is the only thing that she had never told her. However, she had the terrible feeling that she would be responsible for what was to happen, and her torment continued…
It had been 2 weeks now, and at the manor, the girls and their men all felt the pain still. The silences were long and awkward. But one night Piper came home with a happy smile, and she came to Prue hoping that her news would brighten her spirit:
"Prue?"
Prue turned to her with little enthusiasm:
"Yes?"
Piper' smile faded a little:
"Well I hope that you will be happy for Leo and me…"
Prue suddenly seems more interested:
"What?"
Piper:
"We are going to have a baby…"
Prue smiled frankly at that and hugged her sister:
"Oh my god that is so wonderful. I know that you wanted it."
Piper suddenly becomes more serious:
"I would have just wished that I could share this joy with all of you…"
This again brings back the Phoebe's memory, and it takes them a moment before they can talk again. Then Prue begins:
"You know what? She just would've wanted you to be happy. Don't you think?"
Piper:
"I know."
Prue asks more animatedly:
"So, am I the first to know?"
Piper:
"Yes, I didn't tell Leo yet. I was planning some kind of a dinner celebration before telling him."
Prue:
"That sounds wonderful. And I'm sure that he will be thrilled."
Piper smiles too.
Outside, Cole is observing the house with an inscrutable expression. He has been to many places until now, and he's pondering going back to see the girls. He is still very confused. Without her, he cannot find his way. He has measured himself by her standards for so long that now he wonders if he ever was truly good. No matter the numerous proofs of it, he still can't be sure. In the last few weeks, he has had impulses that scared him. The pain had been so terrible that he had been seeking for relief, first in actual drunken binges, then in just moving around from world to world, even trying to catch a glimpse of the other Phoebes that he knew of. But he knew in his heart that only one of them had been the love of his life and now she was gone.
He could feel the pain returning again and he turned around, not wanting to look at the house anymore. That is when he found himself face to face with his father.
Benjamin:
"Please stay," he said in a pleading voice. "I have been trying to find you."
Cole, with a flat voice:
"I can't see why, we do not have anything to talk about."
Benjamin, more insistent now:
"Yes we do, son. There is something that you must know about Phoebe."
Cole's expression turns angry now, and he almost screams at him:
"Don't you talk about her."
Benjamin:
"I know that you are angry with yourself and me probably too, but it's really important that you listen. There may be a reason to hope."
Cole is stunned, it is too much like what he has dreamed of and rejected so many times in the last two weeks.
Benjamin continues when he sees that he got his attention:
"I think that your mother has taken her somewhere. I saw her take her body from the coffin two weeks ago.
Cole now loses the small hope that he had:
"And what difference would it make? She'd still be dead. But be that as it may, I know that she's at the cemetery and nowhere else, I saw them put her in the ground," he says in a hoarse voice.
Benjamin:
"No all you saw was the coffin, I swear to you, Phoebe wasn't in it."
Cole can't help but feel a hint of hope coming through the pain, but he is still not going to believe him completely:
"Even if it were true, what would she want with her body?"
Benjamin:
"What if we were all mistaken?"
Cole:
"What?"
Benjamin hesitates:
"What if she found a way to at least revive her?
Or even to have faked her death very convincingly."
Cole:
"That is insane," but even as he is arguing, the little hope is growing.
Cole continues hesitantly:
"Why…" he licks his lips and doesn't even understand why he lets himself hope like this, but he can't help it.
"Why would she do that?"
Benjamin:
"There could be many reasons, one of which is that she would want the baby…"
Cole's heart skips a beat at this. The baby, he couldn't even bring himself to think about him until now.
"Then," Benjamin continues, "she might also think that losing her would bring you back to her. This way she would win both ways. If you didn't turn evil, she might use Phoebe to make you do anything she wanted."
At this point, Cole knows that if that were true he would do anything to see Phoebe again. And he makes a decision on the spot and leaves without saying anything else.
Benjamin is so surprised that he doesn't think of stopping him fast enough, and then wonders if he didn't make things worse…