"Grams," Phoebe gasped when she entered the attic, "Mom."
"Patty, Penny," Victor solemnly greeted the spirits who stood within the circle. "What's going on in here?"
"I'd say Phoebe guessed right a few minutes ago," Cole commented simply as he finally entered the room. He didn't miss the glares Piper and Paige gave him as they stood before the open Book of Shadows.
"Phoebe, have you taken leave of your senses?" Penny asked with utter disapproval.
"Mother, please," Patty said with a stern glance before she focused on her daughter. "Phoebe, what happened? Did he do something to you? A spell perhaps?" Phoebe shook her head and Patty asked in a worried voice, "He didn'tDid he force you to --" But Phoebe vigorously shook her head and Patty sighed, "Then how could this happen, sweetheart? After everything he's put you and your sisters through?"
"It wasn't completely unprovoked," Phoebe quietly admitted. "He's not the only one in the wrong," she acknowledged with a shy glance towards Cole. "What about what we did to him? How we treated him?"
"He's a demon, Phoebe," Paige insisted, "and I think we've treated him a hell of a lot better than most!"
"How many chances do we have to give him before it sinks in, Phoebe?" Piper shouted. "He's a demon and always will be! He will destroy you and all of us in the process. Damn it, couldn't you once think of someone else besides yourself?"
"All right, that's enough!" Victor stated in a loud angry voice. "Phoebe's not on trial here." He put a hand on Phoebe's shoulder and gently told her, "Come on, sweetheart, let me take you home with me."
"No, Dad," Phoebe weakly said, "this is it. The end. No more running from the truth."
"Listen to your father, Phoebe," Cole quietly suggested. "Give it some time."
She turned around to face him. "Time?" she asked exasperated. "Now you want to give it some time? If you would've given me time when I asked months ago, we might not be here now."
Cole flashed her a look of annoyance, "Blaming me again? Phoebe, I swear"
Victor stepped between them. "Not here," he sternly told them, "not now. You'll deal with your issues some other time. Right now, Phoebe, you have to work things out with your sisters."
"There's nothing to work out, Dad," Piper insisted. "If Phoebe wants a life with Cole, a life endlessly tinged with evil and danger, then she can have it. But not here. Not with us. And if it means losing the Power of Three then so be it. We fulfilled our destiny when we vanquished the Source, all three of them," she added with a spiteful look towards her sister and ex-brother-in-law. "If this is a sign that we're meant to live normal lives, then Phoebe's right, this is the end."
"Piper" Paige nervously commented.
"What?' her older sister asked her. "You'll still have your powers because of your Whitelighter half and so will the baby. But think about it. No more being on demonic radar. No more attacks. No more repairmen bills. No more --"
"Enough, Piper," Penny abruptly interrupted, "we understand your point."
Patty looked sadly at Phoebe and, in a quiet tone, asked, "Phoebe, what do you have to say for yourself?"
"What do you want me to say, Mom?" Phoebe sighed.
"The truth," her mother suggested, "that's all. We're worried about you. We love you so much but we can't understand how, after everything he put you and your sisters through, you could still go back to him. Didn't you realize there would be dire consequences?"
"I haven't gone back to him," Phoebe muttered.
"I told you," Piper told her mother in frustration. "She's compulsive. She can't even tell she's lying anymore."
"Piper, please," Penny requested, "let your sister explain."
"Why do I always have to explain?" Phoebe sadly complained.
"Why do you always screw up?" Piper retorted. She noticed the number of shocked faces and shook her head. "I mean it. She never thinks about the consequences. She never learns from her mistakes. She gets hurt, or causes us to get hurt, and she thinks saying I'm sorry' makes it all better. Well, not this time. I nearly lost my club. We were thrown out of the house. Last week, I was forced to choose which of my sisters had to die. All because of him. Because he was obsessed with her."
"That doesn't make it her fault," Penny commented.
"It does if she wants it," Piper boldly responded.
"I want this?" Phoebe whispered in shock. "You think I want this?" she repeated in a louder voice. "Ever since I met Cole, I've had to choose. You or him. Him or you. Balancing the two nearly tore me apart. You have no idea, Piper. No idea what it's been like. Yeah, you had it tough in the beginning with Leo. But with our support you beat the odds. Proved the Elders wrong. Witches and Whitelighters weren't the end of the world. Who ever really supported me and Cole? We were alone in this the entire time. You and Prue were just waiting for the other shoe to drop and something to go wrong just so you could prove me wrong. But in the meantime, you get to marry Leo in blessed happiness. You become pregnant with a powerful magical child for the good side and, still, you have the nerve to stand there and tell me I wanted to have my world come crashing down around me? That I wanted Cole to become the Source? That I wanted our baby to become evil? That I wanted to watch some vile creature steal him from within me?" She gave a bitter laugh, "That's right, Piper, all I ever wanted was to prove all of you right and destroy half my soul!"
"Phoebe" Cole stepped behind her and put his hand on her shoulder.
At the same time, Victor put his hand on Phoebe's arm to try and calm her, "Sweetheart"
But Phoebe was too excited and angrily shrugged off both gestures. "No! Mom wants to know the truth. Fine. I'll tell her the truth. I'll tell them all exactly how I ended up at Cole's."
"Phoebe, maybe --" Penny began to suggest.
"No, Grams," Phoebe answered as tears blurred her vision slightly, "you all wanted to hear this. You want to know why I lied about last night? It's because I didn't know how to tell you how I felt. I can't talk to any of you about Cole because you don't understand. You never did. Sure you'd listen but you'd immediately tell me that it's for the best and I'd get over it. Like it's that easy. I went to the mausoleum last night because it was the only place I knew where I could feel safe. Where I could be free. Free to think. Free to be me. Free of worrying about how any of you would react if I simply wanted to feel for him. Grieve for him. I sat there crying for hours over how my life had changed in such a brief period of time. How Cole had changed. He found me sitting there and it wasn't a pretty confrontation. We didn't just argue. He wanted to kill me."
"Phoebe," Cole warned in a soft voice.
"What," she cried as she turned to him. "It's the truth. Grams wants answers. Mom wants the truth. This is it." She spun back to face her sisters and mother and grandmother. "The truth is, Cole proved to me that he wanted to kill me and he had the perfect opportunity. I knew I couldn't vanquish him and I didn't try to stop him." Her mother gasped and Phoebe nodded, "That's right, I didn't. In fact, I encouraged him. I forced the athame back into his hand and kept telling him to do it. Over and over and over. I practically begged him to put us out of our misery."
"But why, my darling?" Penny asked in shock.
"Because I wanted to die!" Phoebe shouted at them all. "I wanted to die"
"My baby," Victor whispered as he quickly wrapped his arms around her.
Phoebe sobbed in his arms. "I wanted the pain to go away. I just wanted it to go away."
Cole watched with concern as Victor led Phoebe to the sofa. Victor stared at him and Cole quietly admitted, "I couldn't do it. Killing the Shapeshifter as Phoebe was one thing. But the real PhoebeI couldn't do it."
Phoebe wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. She felt utterly weak but she pulled away from her father's embrace. "And then everything changed," she added hoarsely as she looked up at Cole. "One minute he had me pinned to the wall with the blade at my throat and the next he was kissing me. All that anger, that passion" She suddenly turned to her older sister. "And I wanted it. It felt good. Being with him again felt incredibly good. But it doesn't mean I'm back together with him. And he knows it," she added as she turned back to Cole.
"We have certain issues of trust to deal with," Cole agreed as he gazed back at her. "Not to mention pain and anger."
Phoebe nodded. "And it doesn't change anything he's done in recent weeks. Butwe still can be magical together," she quietly admitted, "and it may not make any sense but, no matter how hard I've tried, I can't change how I feel."
"Neither can I," Piper said after a moment of silence had fallen over the room. "You have to leave," she declared.
"What?" Paige gasped.
Piper turned to her youngest sister. "It's always going to be like this," she explained to Paige, "if we allow her to stay. He's a magnet for evil and, if she chooses to be with him, we'll be caught in the middle again. I will not deliberately bring my baby into this situation."
"She just needs some time," Penny suggested to Phoebe. "You've given her, us all, a lot to deal with."
"Stop saying that," Piper told her grandmother. "I've given Phoebe all the time in the world. I've been understanding. I've been supportive. But I can't do it anymore. I can't go through this all again. It's a vicious cycle but it has to end. Now."
"Dad?" Phoebe quietly asked as she turned to her father. "Can I stay with you?"
Victor glanced at his former wife and mother-in-law and they looked back at him sadly. "Of course you can, sweetheart. For as long as you need."
"Just go, okay," Piper requested as tears streamed down her face. She reached for Paige's hand and squeezed it tightly. "And don't call here."
"Not for a while, anyway," Paige hastily clarified.
"I love you, Piper, Paige," Phoebe tearfully said as her father reached over to help her up. "I nevernever did anything to deliberately hurt you. I never in a million years wanted to hurt any of you. I love all of you." As she stood up, her hand brushed against the blanket that was lying on the end of the sofa. She staggered slightly and reached out for support and her father suddenly stopped moving. As her fingers tangled in the blanket, the room spun for her and images shifted. She brought the blanket up closer and twisted it in her hands. Horrible bloody images filled her sight. Suddenly, she doubled over in pain and moaned, "The baby."
Stunned, Cole still managed to rush to her other side and help Victor support her. "It'll be okay," he assured her as he quickly tore the blanket from her grip.
Phoebe was trembling and only saw the images before her. "Daddy, take the babyGet the Book"
Victor exchanged a glance of confusion with Cole but, before he and Cole managed to seat Phoebe on the sofa, she doubled over in their arms and moaned again. "What the hell's happening to her?" he asked Cole.
Piper and Paige and rushed a few steps closer but still kept their distance. "It's a premonition," Piper announced in concern.
"It doesn't work like that," Patty commented as she watched Phoebe struggle to breathe properly.
"Her power's advanced," Paige informed them in a quiet tone as she watched Cole and Victor tend to her older sister who had collapsed to the floor. "She doesn't just see the future. She's a part of it."
"Cole, no, look out!" Phoebe weakly shouted.
"I'm right here," Cole whispered to her as he helped Victor set her on the sofa. "We're safe, honey, we're safe."
"Can't let him win," she insisted as she stared blankly ahead. "Won't let him takeNo!" she screamed in agony before she slumped unconscious against her father.
"Phoebe?" Victor whispered in fear as he watched blood quickly pool around her stomach. In disbelief, he touched it and held his bloody fingers up to look at it. "What in God's name is happening?" he whispered.
Horrified, Patty fled the circle, became solid, and knelt next to Victor. She lightly brushed her hand along Phoebe's pale forehead. "Phoebe?"
"Where the hell is Leo?" Cole growled at the shocked sisters. When they didn't respond, he shouted, "You want to watch her die? Do you hate her that much?"
"Leo!" Piper yelled in a hoarse voice.
"Leo!" Paige added in a slightly louder tone.
Leo orbed in and began apologizing, "There's been a development and --"
"Not now," Piper insisted. "Phoebe," she pointed.
Leo hurried over and stepped between the others. He placed his hands over Phoebe's stomach and watched as they glowed and began to heal her. He stepped back behind the others and Piper went to his side. He hugged her and asked, in a low tone, "What happened?"
Before Piper could answer, Phoebe gasped for air and everyone's attention shifted to her.
Phoebe opened her eyes. "Piper, no!" she screamed as she shot up straight and reached out. She didn't see her parents beside her. She didn't see Cole reaching for her. All she saw were bloody images of death. So she squeezed her eyes shut and tuned everything out.
*********** ********** ************