As usual, a few notes before I start:
Note #1: Barb and Maggie, you asked for a sequel to "The Right Whitelighter in the Right Place" in order to see Leo dealing with Piper's pregnancy. Well, I didn't really wrote a sequel, but Piper is pregnant, and if Leo thinks he knows what he's put himself into, he's got another thing coming. Just be patient and wait for the next chapters: the current scene is getting longer than I expected, but I'll get there.
Note #2: Hey, Lilian, I missed your reviews! I was hoping this story would get another review from you and -- yay! -- mission acomplished.
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Phoebe and Paige look at Piper, half expecting their older sister to tell them what to do with the ragged guy that's standing in the middle of the living room. He is slim and tall, with pointy ears and wheat blonde hair. And, of course, there's this freakish green and blue skin of his.
Before Piper can decide what to do, Cole comes from the kitchen, saying:
"Piper, before you say anything..." -- he stops short as the demon spins around and looks at him with a smile of relief.
"Belthazor!"
"Sarsour?!?"
Before the girls can do or say anything, Sarsour jumps forward, and looks dumbfounded when Cole takes a step back and shouts towards the kitchen:
"Leo! Stay in there!"
He turns to the demon with a stern look and says:
"What are you doing here?"
"Belthazor..."
"Belthazor doesn't exist any more."
"Cole, who's this?" says Phoebe, the fire ball still hovering over her opened hand.
"Someone I used to know," he says, without taking his eyes of the demon. "Sarsour, you have no business here. Leave."
"But, Belth... my friend," he quickly corrects himself, when Cole frowns menacingly, "I need your help."
"You what???" says Cole.
"For the old days..."
"For the old days I'm giving you the chance to leave my house in one piece," says Cole. "Leave, Sarsour. And don't come back."
"I..."
"Hey!" says Piper. "Demon? You heard the man. Out!"
To make her point clear, she explodes a magazine lying on the table right beside him, and the demon jumps and squeaks in fear.
"That's okay, Piper," says Cole, with a hint of pity in his eyes, "he's leaving. Sarsour," he says, almost gently, "you should never have come here, in the first place. I've left this part of my life behind. For good. I don't do evil anymore, I don't even have powers, as you must have heard. So why don't you just leave and we all forget that you were ever here?"
"No, you don't understand," says Sarsour, anxiously, "I'm in trouble, my friend. Big trouble."
"Sarsour, that's old news," Cole sighs. "As far as I remember, you were always in trouble."
"Yes, yes," says Sarsour, "and you always helped me out of it. You were a good friend. Still are. And I helped you out of trouble a couple of times, too," he adds, giving Cole an hesitant smile. "Right?"
Piper, Phoebe and Paige exchange worried looks as Cole rubs his temples and says:
"Right. You did."
"Old friend," says Sarsour, sensing Cole's hesitation and eagerly seizing the opportunity, "I'm not asking you to do anything evil, I just need you to help me prove my innocence."
"Now, that's rich..." says Paige, rolling her eyes.
Sarsour ignores her as he takes advantage of Cole's silence to pursue, speaking very fast:
"I'm being accused of something I didn't do. If they catch me now, it'll be the end for me, you know how trolls' justice works, but..."
"Whoa!" says Cole, grimacing. "Trolls? You're telling me you got in trouble with trolls?"
"Yes, but it's not my fault, I didn't do anything, but they think I did, and if they catch me before I get an attorney..."
"An attorney!" says Phoebe, shocked. "You're asking my husband to represent a demon in a trolls' court?"
"Oh, so, you're the wife!" says Sarsour, turning to her with a smile that vanishes when he sees the fire ball in her hand.
"Wow," he says, wincing. "Hot-headed, huh?" he looks at Cole again. "I see your taste for ladies hasn't changed."
"Piper, would you freeze him?" says Cole.
"What?" says Piper, raising her eyebrows.
"Freeze him, will you?" he insists. "I wanna talk to the three of you in private, would you rather leave him all by himself in your living room?"
"No," says Piper, "I'd rather have him take his green and blue demonic butt off my house."
"Please," he pursues, clearly embarassed.
"What? What?" says Sarsour, nervously looking from Cole to Piper. "No no, no freezing! No need to freeze me! I won't cause any harm, I'll just..."
"Oh, shut up!" says Piper motioning her hands towards him and freezing him.
Before Cole can say anything, they hear Leo's voice coming from the kitchen:
"Will anyone tell me what's going on?"
"Uh, sorry, Leo," says Cole. "Come here."
Leo comes from the kitchen with Ben in his arms, but stops short as he sees Sarsour frozen in the middle of the room.
"Wow!" he says. "Honey, why is there a demon in the living room?"
"I think the point is, why hasn't he been vanquished yet?" says Piper. "Cole, care to answer that?"
"I just..." Cole shifts his weight from one foot to the other, uneasy. "I mean, if he actually didn't do anything, helping him prove it wouldn't be an act of evil, would it?"
"W-what?" says Paige, shocked.
"Baby," says Phoebe, circling the frozen demon and going to Cole, "you can't be serious. Please, say you're not."
"I... I'm just saying that, well, technically..."
"Here, honey," says Leo, talking to Piper but keeping his eyes on Cole, "hold Ben for a while."
"Cole," he says, utterly worried, "are you talking about him?" -- he points at Sarsour -- "The demon that -- for reasons I'm afraid to ask -- is standing right here in the living room? Helping him?"
"Just helping him prove his innocence, assuming he's actually..." Cole starts to say.
"Cole, he's a demon, for crying out loud!" says Piper, struggling to keep her voice down for Ben's sake.
"Half demon." says Cole.
"He's half human, too?" says Phoebe, giving Sarsour a dubious look.
"Actually, half elf."
"An elf??? His father was an elf?" -- she almost giggles, despite the seriousness of the situation.
"His mother was an elf, and his father was a demon," Cole explains, "but we're digressing here."
"Right," says Piper, firmly, "we're missing the point, and the point here is, he's a demon, which means he's evil, which means helping him would be evil, too. I'm not even sure if letting him go wouldn't be evil."
"Piper, come on, look at him!" says Cole, pointing at the frozen figure, "He's not much of a demon even when he's in his best shape, which is clearly not the case right now. He doesn't even have decent powers."
"Cole, what's with this guy?" says Phoebe, placing her hand on his arm. "Why do you care about his fate?"
"We're, uh... best friends when we were kids," says Cole, flushing sligthly, "he's only a couple of years older than me."
"You used to hang out with him?" says Paige, giving Sarsour a derogatory look. "Gee, Cole, were you member of the Math Club, too?"
"What's a math... never mind," says Cole. He turns to Phoebe again and explains: "Half breeds aren't exactly popular in the Underworld. I met Sarsour when I was five and he was seven, and for a couple of years he was my only friend. Later, when my powers developed, I had no problem being accepted by the other kids, but Sarsour's powers never developed properly. I guess elfish blood doesn't agree with demonic blood."
"Buy you kept hanging out with him?" says Phoebe.
"Uh, well, someone had to prevent the other kids from beating the crap out of him," he says, shrugging and averting her eyes. "But as grown ups, we sort of lost contact: while I was raising in rank and being assigned more important missions, he only received subaltern tasks. Then I joined the Brotherhood, and they would never dream of letting him in. When the Triad sent me after you and your sisters, I hadn't heard from him in, I don't know, twenty, twenty-five years."
"Cole, we've been through this before," says Leo. "Alliances with evil have always turned out badly. You, more than anyone else, should know that."
"Yes, but this wouldn't be really an alliance..." Cole starts to say, but Leo cuts him off.
"Exactly," he says, sternly. "That would be helping a demon, plain and simple. No excuses, no greater good to be achieved, just a service provided to evil."
As Cole rubs his temples and says nothing, Leo pursues:
"Cole, you've come such a long way, why would you now jeopardize everything you have achieved so far?"
Cole glances at Sarsour, feeling torn.
"He's going to trial," he says, without much conviction. "He's entitled to have a lawyer."
"Can't he have another demon defend him?" says Phoebe, feeling sorry for him.
"None of them would," says Cole, sadly. "I told you, he's not popular among demons. Do you think he would have come to a house full of witches if he had any other option?"
"I'm sorry, Cole," says Leo. "Really. But successful or not, he's still a demon. I don't even wanna think about what the Elders would do if they knew you helped a demon."
"You know," says Piper, timidly, "Cole's not a witch." -- she flushes as the others look at her, surprised -- "I mean, the Elders would freak out if we helped a demon, us being good witches and everything, but if all the guy needs is a lawyer..."
Leo's jaw drops. He was afraid Phoebe would take her husband's side, but his own wife pleading for the demon is a twist he never saw coming. As he looks at Piper, speechless, she proceeds, rocking Ben gently:
"It wouldn't require the use of magic. Would it?" she asks Cole.
"No, not at all," he says, not less astonished than Leo. "It would be just like any other trial... well, the trolls' law system is a little different from ours but, other than that..."
"No," says Leo, finally finding his voice, "This is... This is just..." -- he struggles for the words --- "No! Honey, you can't be serious!"
Piper glances at Sarsour, thinking of her own nerd days back in high school. She whishes someone had stood up for her, then. Then, giving her husband a sheepish look, she says:
"As long as Phoebe, Paige and I don't have anything to do with it, and no magic is involved, I guess the Elders can't say anything about Cole's actions..."
"Piper, this is not about the Elders scowling me because one of my charges broke the rules," says Leo, "it's about Cole dealing with evil, helping an evil being!"
He turns to Cole again and says, wishing he didn't have to resort to this:
"Cole, you have been this close to eternal damnation twice, are you willing to give it a third chance? How long will you keep pushing your luck? How long until you finally go too far to be saved?"
He sees Cole wince and feels terrible, but sustains his look, resolved to talk him out of this insanity at any cost.
"It wouldn't hurt," says Phoebe, suddenly, "if we just heard his story."
Seeing the grateful look Cole gives her, Leo knows this battle is lost.
"I can't believe you guys!" -- so far, Paige was silent, but now she takes one step forward and looks at them with incredulity. -- "He's evil! No matter how pathetic he is, he's evil. We're supposed to fight evil, not help them."
Leo looks at Paige with gratitude. He knows by now that he won't be able to dissuade the others, but it's good to know that one of them still hasn't lost her mind. Maybe it's her Whitelighter half, he thinks.
"You're doing it, aren't you?" he says to Cole. "You're helping him."
Cole looks at him and hesitates for a moment. Since Leo rescued him from the gates of Hell, the two men have become closer to each other. They have talked a lot since then; he told Leo about the nightmares that haunted him during the first weeks after his return, telling him things he never told Phoebe, and Leo understood him because he had been there, too: he even had his own share of nightmares. Right now, Cole knows that by trying to dissuade him, Leo is acting on his best interest, and a part of him just wants to follow his advice and stay away from what seems like one last attempt of his past to come after him. He looks from Leo to Sarsour, and then back to Leo.
