"That's so cute!" Paige cooed at Chris and Wyatt interacting, as she pushed their stroller to the door, waiting for Piper and Leo to catch up with the bags of food.
Leo and Piper were laughing and exchanging glances of mutual affection. It made Paige happy to see them together, and acting something other than miserable. Understanding what was happening to Piper seemed to expel some of their worry, at least for now. However, two kids, not enough sleep, and no dinner were beginning to make her just a little annoyed.
"Could two hurry up... Aunt Paige needs food and rest before she withers away and dies!" She laid on the sarcasm thick.
Piper smiled, rolling her eyes at her sister. "Alright, alright... let me just get the keys." She began to dig in her pocket.
Leo noted the door was not shut properly. He walked up to it, without saying a word, and pushed it open. The girls fell silent. Had they been robbed? Had demons attacked while they were out?
The house was silent. Paige rolled the stroller over some broken glass, horrified at the absolute destruction their house was in. She left both of the kids in their stroller, for safety, they didn't want anyone cutting themselves. Piper's well made boots crunched the already small pieces of window into powdered glass. She made her way past the front room, into the kitchen. Everything was trashed. It looked like a stampede of people ran through her home.
Paige shrugged. "Maybe Phoebe and Cole had a fight..." She said half-heartily.
"I don't think so... Leo..." Piper turned to her husband. "Is Phoebe ok?"
Leo closed his eyes, and opened them suddenly. He looked worried, like she should have sensed something sooner. He dashed toward the attic stairs, with Paige and Piper behind him, only because they took the time to grab the kids.
"Paige... put the kids in their room, I don't want them to see, if..." Her words trailed, as she came upon the scene.
Paige didn't have time to take the kids to their room. What she saw in the attic stopped her in her tracks. "Oh my God."
It was a sight none of them wanted to see. It was that gut wrenching feeling all of them wished they'd never felt. Phoebe was laying face down in a pile of rubble. The remains of what looked to be their cabinets from the side of the attic cluttered the floor beneath her. Blood splattered everything. Leo couldn't tell for sure, but it looked as though she'd been ritualistically bled – As if drained for another purpose, other than death. Yet death is what the end result had been. Her face was grey with loss of blood; her lips were a pale color, bluish in tint. Her arms outstretched – fighting it the entire way. Her legs were laid apart, at an angel that seemed to indicate that she had been forcibly held down – probably for the blood-letting. Stab wounds littered her body, as if a hundred people had taken their turn digging into her. The elder ran his hands through his hair and swallowed down his fears. He placed his hand on her shoulder, motioning to turn her over. He let his hands hover over her chest, waiting, holding his breath that his healing light could do its job.
After only a few seconds, but it felt more like hours to Paige, she spoke.
Choking on her words, she said. "Why isn't it working... it should work... what's wrong?"
Knowing all too well what was wrong, remembering what happened to Prue and now Phoebe too, Piper didn't ask. She covered Wyatt's eyes, and just started to cry. This couldn't be happening again, not again. She'd gone through too much, too much to relive her worst nightmare all over again.
"Leo...?" Paige, sounding as innocent as a small child, couldn't grasp the idea that sometimes magic just didn't work. "Why isn't she waking up?" Paige, still holding a sleeping baby Chris in her arms, knelt on the ground and began to sob.
Not taking no for an answer, Piper stood up, stomping her feet on the ground. She stared into toward the sky, and shouted. "You've taken so much from us, but I will not let you take her! Not her! You hear me? Not her!" Piper demanded. "Not this time, you won't get another one!" Then, turning to Leo. "You summon everything you have inside – you bring her back!"
Leo didn't know what to say. It was futile to think he could bring someone this far gone back to life. He wished it wasn't so, but it was. There was only so many miracles that even an Elder could produce. He didn't sense anything left of her, and her spirit was not here anymore – she'd already moved on. He looked down into her face, her mouth was opened a little, and her eyes were fixed on something – glazed over and dull now, they bore a hole into his head.
"Piper..." Leo's eye began to well up with tear. "She's not here anymore."
Piper shook her head, unable to hear that. "No... no..."
It was then that Cole began to make groaning sounds, as he started to wake up. In the distance he could hear noises, he could hear Piper, and Leo... and Paige. Phoebe? Why couldn't he hear Phoebe?
Cole sat up quickly. "Phoebe!?" He screamed, as his eyes adjusted to the lighting of the attic.
It didn't take long for him to find the cause of their tears. The mangled mess Phoebe had been left in could only mean one thing. They drained her blood for their sick leader – who would probably use it to pervert some ancient ritual. Cole went to her side, closing her eyes, and taking her hand into his. Her bloody finger's dangled limping over his palm. One of her nails was broken off, and the blood had already dried. There was only one way top make this better.
"I can fix this." He said in a lowly voice.
Piper grabbed him, as Leo took Wyatt and Chris away from the scene. "Then fix it."
"Fix it now." Paige sniffled, taking a dagger, still covered in blood, from the floor.
Cole nodded expectantly. "You must understand, she might not come back the same. Demonic resurrections, they aren't like whitelighter healings."
Paige and Piper both answered at once. "I don't care. Do it."
Cole took Phoebe's still limp body into his arms, and shimmered into the underworld with her – bent of resurrecting the love of his life – even if in this incarnation she didn't love him.