Part Twenty-One

Forty-Five Minutes Later…

May 9, 2004

Phoebe stirred and opened her eyes. Lying on her side, she caressed her belly and thanked the baby for letting her doze for a bit. She glanced at the clock and was surprised to see that half an hour had passed which meant she hadn't had a contraction in nearly forty minutes. "Definitely a step in the right direction," she encouraged the baby. "I love you but I don't want to see you for another three weeks." She cautiously stretched but frowned when the ache in her lower back didn't disappear. She wasn't ready to call for one of her sisters, couldn't picture Chris giving her a back rub, and sighed when she realized that only left Leo. She knew he'd be eager to help but she also knew he'd use the opportunity to convince her to talk to her sisters. And that she wasn't ready for.

She wanted to be angry with her sisters. After everything they'd been through during the past two years, how could they, in an instant, think the worst of Cole? Was this a repeat of their behavior from two years ago? Had they merely gone through the motions of letting Cole back into their lives? Was it like before when Piper confessed to having tolerated his presence only because Phoebe loved Cole? "Maybe not," she sighed. She had to admit that Piper had sort of given Cole the benefit of the doubt by saying that maybe Cole had been a victim too. That maybe he hadn't meant to attack Wyatt. But he didn't…unintentionally or not and all she had to do was prove it. Phoebe bit her bottom lip and willed herself not to cry. Cole. I want him to rub my back. I want to feel his fingers on my skin. I want to hear his voice tell me it's okay. I want… "I want you back, Cole," she softly declared. "I'm going to prove your innocence and I'm going to find you and then we're going to get ready to have our baby."

The need to feel closer to him was nearly overwhelming so Phoebe quickly tugged his sweater from the pile next to her. As she hugged it close, she absentmindedly wondered what she'd done with his socks. They'd been in the pile along with his shoes but she didn't spot them as her eyes scanned the bed. And the more she wondered about them, the more upset she became. Over a pair of socks, no less! 'But they were his socks,' she argued with herself, 'the last ones he wore.' The baby kicked her sharply and, as she rubbed the spot, she suddenly remembered that she'd thrown the pair of socks into the hamper as soon as she'd sought refuge in her room. She smiled sheepishly at her forgetfulness and thanked the baby for the uncomfortable reminder, "One thing to want to smell his sweater, kiddo, but completely another to smell his socks." She chuckled and could've sworn the baby did too. She caressed her belly and felt the baby move again, "Guess you're up now too. Don't suppose you've got any ideas for what we do next?"

Phoebe propped herself up on her elbow and reached for Cole's pants. She pulled his wallet from the right front pocket and held it under her nose for a moment while she inhaled its fresh leather scent. He hadn't wanted a new wallet but she'd insisted that once the baby arrived he'd need a larger one to hold all the additional family photos. He'd snorted in reply, 'Upper level demon showing off family photos…you know what that'll do to my reputation?' Phoebe smiled while she remembered the rather graphic retort she'd threatened him in return. But her eyes immediately welled again with tears and she pulled out the mini-album and began recalling each moment of theirs that had been frozen in time.

Her fingers lightly ran back and forth over the last photo. So dark, she could barely tell what the grainy black and white picture was. She wiped away a tear from her cheek when the image of Cole toying with their computer's photo program flashed in her mind. 'We couldn't make her out in the original and now you've reduced our daughter to a blob?' she'd teased at the time. 'No one's gonna know what this is.' She let her tears fall as she recalled his smile back to her, such a patient, indulging, loving, smile, while he had simply said, 'I'll know.' Phoebe curled up on the bed as more tears fell and she kissed the photo, "I'll find your daddy, I promise."

After a few moments of getting that cry out of her system, Phoebe blew her nose and lay quietly on the bed. "Crying about it won't do any of us any good," she decided. But she still had no clue how to go about proving Cole's innocence. "Maybe it's not so much proving his innocence as it is proving Gideon's guilt," she considered. "If I can prove Gideon was behind the attacks on Wyatt, that might be enough. So, how do I backtrack when we vanquished the demons in each of the attacks? How do I link Gideon to the Underworld? He couldn't possibly have known each demon personally so he had to have had some contact down there to hire the demons for him. All I have to do is find that contact and convince the demon to turn on Gideon. If I had my power of illusion I could probably pose as a demon and trick him into revealing the truth but as a Charmed One? Without any powers, I won't stand a chance unless I have something to offer in return. Unless you'd like to share one of your future powers right about now?"

She'd always been concerned that the baby hadn't displayed any powers during her pregnancy even though the possibility had scared her. Of course this baby wasn't like her last one. There was no evil growing within her. She wasn't surrounded by it or torn by it. But she still dreamt about it, still woke up in a cold sweat remembering how the burning sensation felt. How powerful it felt. And Cole was always there to reassure her, to hold her until she fell back asleep, to whisper to her about how wonderful and beautiful and good their baby was. He was positive that the baby would inherit some combination of their powers, the new ones or possibly the old ones somehow, but that she was simply keeping them to herself right now. Phoebe caressed her belly and continued speaking to the baby, "I guess I've got enough to worry about right now without worrying about your powers so just pretend I never asked, okay?"

The baby thumped against her ribs and she smiled, "Glad you agree…Now, where was I? Right, turning Gideon's contact. Not inconceivable 'cuz demons're big on that, y'know? Sure, there's a reward for loyalty but only 'til a certain point. Even the Source broke his word. Of course, he probably didn't consider it that way but --" The baby kicked harder and she grunted before clarifying, "I'm not talking about when your daddy was the Source. But it's still a fact. Demons will work with one another and protect one another as long as they've got something to gain. But listen to me, you can't trust a demon who'll turn on his brother in a second if he thought it was to his advantage. Daddy may be a demon but he's not like that at all, not any more. At least not in that way even if he does know how to still get what he wants."

Thoughts of Cole began distracting her so she pushed herself into a seated position and leaned back against her pillows. She had to get back on track. "Gideon's contact might be the key but what's in it for him? What could I possibly have to offer the demon in exchange for information on Gideon? And even if he would give me the evidence I need, would everyone else trust the word of a demon? Probably not. I just told you not to trust a demon so why would they? Hell, they don't even seem to trust Cole." She shook her head as if that would get rid of the idea. "They trust Cole," she tried to convince herself, "and I need a way to show them it hasn't been misplaced."

She lay quietly for another moment before commenting, "But I think we're on the right track. Going after Gideon, finding his contact. What d'you think?" A brief contraction was all she received for her deliberations and, as she rolled back onto her side, Phoebe smothered her soft moan with her pillow. Still panting in surprise, she complained, "Not nice. I thought we settled this before, kiddo, you're staying put for three more weeks. No arguments."

But Phoebe couldn't help it and glanced at the clock again to mentally time the lapses between all the contractions she'd had since the afternoon. She was doing her best not to panic and to think positively about it. They weren't coming in a regular pattern, certainly not as regular as they'd been when she'd gone into labor right after the Tribunal hearing. Maybe the doctor was right and this was simply a reaction to the stress of her day. "And it started off so nicely in bed with Cole," she groused. "We should've just stayed there and locked ourselves in the room and none of this would've happened." The baby kicked again and she apologized for getting annoyed.

All she had to do was stay calm and focused and everything would be fine. No trips to the hospital, no drugs, no "bed arrest." But her lower back continued to ache and she frowned wondering if she wasn't a complete idiot in denial of her physical condition. She didn't want to put her baby in danger. She sighed and rubbed the area in a circular motion and decided as she closed her eyes, "No, the doctor said this might just be a warning that I overdid it and that's the diagnosis I'm going with. I'm not having this baby today. Not today. Okay, Cole, lesson learned. I'm working through the pain, emotional and physical. I'll impress any demon, okay? Now just come back to me and everything'll be fine."

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Phoebe opened her eyes and looked at the clock. She'd managed to doze for another twenty minutes. She lightly rubbed her belly and shifted position. "So far, so good," she said. She'd fallen asleep with her hand still on Cole's clothing and she decided to empty out the other pocket. But, no sooner had she grabbed a fistful of change, than, to her shock at what she'd felt, she dropped it all on the bed. In the midst of it all she saw his wedding ring and, with a trembling hand, picked it up. Cole never took off his ring, not even during the time they'd been divorced and she'd removed hers. She stared at her bare wedding ring finger, clenched the ring in her fist and bit her lip in order not to cry. She'd had to remove her rings a month ago when they'd become too tight for her swollen fingers and Cole had never gotten around to fulfilling his promise of buying her a substitute. 'I don't need to see you wear a ring to know you're committed to me,' he'd insisted after she'd lain in his arms sobbing for twenty minutes. 'Besides, you've only taken off the ring because of the pregnancy so how can you be upset when you're carrying inside you the child we created in love?' Phoebe burst into tears just as she'd done the moment he'd told her that.

After she'd calmed down, she slid the ring on the middle finger of her left hand and sniffled. "This isn't the substitute ring I wanted," she "yelled" at Cole before she sniffled again. Even with her swollen fingers his ring was still too big for her and, as she stared at it, she promised herself that she wouldn't take it off. From inside the collar of her dress, Phoebe pulled out the gold chain Cole had given her in order to wear her rings around her neck. She held them up and compared her ring to his. "Oh, Cole, you should be wearing yours," she whispered.

She began to turn over to lie on her other side but, as her fingers brushed the top of the pile of change, they got caught in the gold chain she hadn't noticed before. She froze as she stared at it and it was a moment longer before she propped herself up, picked up the chain, and suspended the crystal orb before her eyes. A unique crystal she'd discovered in a New Age store and presented to Cole on their wedding night. About an inch in diameter, the center of the clear crystal contained two entwined flames of gold and crimson. 'It's us,' she'd explained while they'd sat in bed and nibbled on their habitual snack of strawberries and cream, 'and maybe it's a sign that this time, this marriage is going to last forever.' He'd pulled her close and promptly informed her that she'd better stop thinking of their marriage in terms of number one and number two because they'd never been apart. 'We were together, and in some ways closer, during the time we were divorced than in the previous weeks we were married. This second wedding is simply another step in our evolving relationship. We will always be together and our love will last forever. So stop pinning it all on the institution of marriage. Got it?'

Tears fell from her eyes as she recalled the desperation in which he'd then pinned her to the bed in the hopes of convincing her they were safe and that their love would endure. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a few deep breaths trying to calm herself. Six months. That's all the time she'd had with him since that night. "It can't end like this," she declared. "I won't let it. Cole was right. We have forever and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let anything get in our way." The baby kicked in agreement and she, once again, focused on the crystal and told the baby, "This is our symbol, I told him. The flames in the middle of a clear crystal, it's pure passion. That's what your daddy and I have. And I don't mean only sex. Not that you're old enough to be thinking about that yet. I mean passion for everything. For life. In the midst of all the chaos, we found each other and we finally got it right. Daddy and I've been to hell and back and I was so afraid we'd try so hard to hold onto our relationship this time that we'd lose our own identities along the way. But we didn't. We remained true to ourselves and because of that we've remained true to each other. He loved it, y'know, and never took it off once he let me put it around his neck. And if he couldn't wear it because the crystal interfered with the lines of his dress shirt, he kept the chain in his pocket…I think the only other time I ever saw your daddy so overwhelmed with emotion like he was that night was the afternoon I told him you were on the way."

She gasped at the start of the contraction. "Oh, Cole," she whispered as she breathed through it. "If this's the real thing, you've got to be here. You can't miss out on our baby coming into the world." She gripped the crystal tightly in her hand and squeezed her eyes shut until the contraction ended. She exhaled in relief and glanced at the clock. Much shorter lapse in time than the last ones and this one was definitely stronger. She squelched the desire to call the doctor and decided to wait and see how long it would be before the next contraction. Of course, she could just as easily call Leo but he would call Piper and Paige and she still hadn't quite decided to forgive them yet.

She stared at the crystal and again wished for Cole to magically appear and tell her it was all a big mistake. "If only I could see you, talk to you. If only I knew what really happened." Suddenly, her vision blurred and she blinked quickly to clear it. But when she stared at the crystal again, it still seemed fuzzy. She glanced to her right but her vision was normal. It seemed only the crystal was unclear. After a few seconds of staring at it, the image distorted slightly as the flames in the crystal's center were magnified slightly and blurred into different shapes. Human shapes, she decided. And the longer she watched, the more clear the images became. "Cole and Gideon!" she discovered with a start.

Phoebe awkwardly sat up and dangled the crystal again before her eyes. As she stared at it, the images moved and changed and she suddenly realized she was watching the event with Wyatt. "I wanted to see," she murmured. "I wanted to see you and know what happened." Cole had somehow charmed the crystal to reveal the scene to her if she asked. Now that she understood, she needed to see it again. "Start over. Show me what happened to Cole," she commanded the crystal.

There was no sound during the "recording" but there was no mistaking what she saw. Cole interrupted Gideon in the middle of trying to steal Wyatt's powers. Cole saved Wyatt, Wyatt orbed out. There was a bit of a power struggle but most of it seemed to be verbal. "I wish I knew what they were saying," she commented to the baby. But suddenly she saw Gideon aim the wand at Cole and she let out a shriek when the flash of light dispersed and she saw Cole's clothing fall to the ground in a heap. "No!" she whispered as she saw Gideon take a step forward and finally kneel before the pile. Tears streamed down her cheeks when the recording ended as soon as Gideon stood and she clenched the crystal in her fist. "Oh, baby, I've got your proof," she cried, "but how am I gonna find you now? You're gone. Gideon ki…ki…killed you."

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"Phoebe!" Paige rushed to support her sister who'd just staggered into the kitchen.

Leo hurried over to help support Phoebe but she angrily pushed them both away. "What's wrong," he asked in concern. "Is it the baby?"

Tears still stinging her eyes, Phoebe glared at all of them, "I've got your damned proof and now I'm going to make Gideon pay."

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