** Change of Heart **, chapter 3: Goodbye.

by Lilian.

lilian413@yahoo.com

AN: Okay, chapter 3 is out. I hope you guys like it--- I redid this thing like four times before I was half satisfied with it. But I think it doesn't suck as much as chapter 2...

plase review!.



**************************



Cole gasped loudly, attracting attention of peasants walking by.

He paid them no attention.

He doubled over, a sizzling pain in his chest making it heard to breathe.

As people gathered around him, and someone called an ambulance, he closed his eyes, and fought back tears welling up in his eyes. Through the daze of pain that made it hard to think straight and even harder to keep Belthazor in check, he tried to concentrate on something, anything, that would keep him sane.

Phoebe.

With sudden clarity, Phoebe's danced right before his eyes, her eyes sad and teary, and whispering her good-byes.

As soon as it came, it disappeared into the mists if his mind, and for a split second, he wondered whether it hadn't been his imagination. He had had feverish illusions of her before.

But this--- this was different.

It was then that with a loud, audible snap, their connection broke.

Like Atropos, the eldest of Fates, cuts with her golden shears the thread of life, controlling destinies of Gods and mortals alike, Phoebe and Cole's connection came crashing down.

And the consequences were far worse than anyone could have anticipated.

Because it was Phoebe the one who had allowed Cole to retain his sanity through the ordeals they had faced together. It had been Phoebe who had calmed him down during the endless nightmares that plagued his nights, and the daydreams that haunted his days. Phoebe had promised him redemption, and had believed it so strongly, Cole had believed it too.

But now, the link was gone.

Phoebe was gone.

And Cole's trembling hold onto his sanity had pretty much snapped too.

He curled up in a fetal position, something he hadn't done since he had been born, and cried. For the first time in a hundred years, he wept.

Because the love of his life had just been killed.


***********************


Mind links can be tricky. Some call them a double-edged dagger. Because it works both ways. You can enter someone's mind, but she can enter *your* mind too. Luckily for the Source, Phoebe didn't know that.

As he twisted and turned everything inside her head, he couldn't help but smile. Such fond memories, such precious recollections... all waiting for him to destroy them. The mind-controlling spell had worked perfectly.

He was able to insert thoughts into her mind, and make her believe they were hers.

Excellent.

Humans were so easy to control... their brain still asleep, still unused, allowed properly trained demons to get inside like one enters a house.

Their feelings were their weakness. And he would exploit it like he had never exploited anything before. He had found her button, and now all he had to do, was push, push and push, until she would break beneath the pressure, and become one of them.

Oh yes, she would be an excellent servant. Most excellent indeed.


*******************************


A couple of days went by.

Phoebe never noticed. Time had blurred into one long, endless constant, where she barely slept, barely ate, and heard the Source's words every single hour of the day.

He refused to touch her, saying no harm would come to her child. And Phoebe thanked him for that. But sometimes she wished he would just beat her, hit her, Gods, slap her!, to stop him from talking.

Stick and stones can't hurt my bones. But words...

The childish saying ran around her head a lot these days.

There had been no rescue attempts... for all she knew, her sisters thought her dead. And Cole--- Cole hadn't come to her either. He was either unable to localize her or--- maybe what the Source said was true.

Maybe he *had* moved on.

For the first three thousand times he had said it, she had laughed in his face.

"Cole loves me".

It had become her mantra. Her motto. He loves me. He loves me. He still loves me.

"Really?. Then why has he not come for you?".

"Because you won't let him!".

Her answers were childish and immature, but the hormones were playing tricks on her, as they run rampage through her petite body. She couldn't think properly, her mind heavy and clouded, and she walked in a daze most of the day.

"Is that so?. Can Belthazor not shimmer in between realms at will?. Have I ever stopped him from coming down here before?".

His words rang true. Phoebe tried to fight them off, to keep them from clinging to her mind like flies onto glue; as spiders they crawled through her memories, making her see, making her realize that maybe Cole had indeed moved on...

Damn estrogens.

She was three months along now. And little Prue had become her most trusted companion. And her most annoying burden.

She talked to her, whenever she was alone. Which wasn't a lot of the time anyway, but still--- it somehow calmed her down, kept her sane... but the morning sickness, and the continuos nausea, and the constant vomiting...

Prue's parenthood was showing, demanding much more nurturing than Phoebe's body could sustain.

Demanding much more magic than Phoebe was able to give.

If things kept going the way they did, both mother and child would be dead within weeks.


**************************


Piper hadn't smiled for days.

There really wasn't anything to smile about, anyway. She had recently lost a sister, scratch that, *two* sisters, both to Evil. And she just had had it.

Destiny be damned, she had given up.

Leo, Paige and Cole were all the family she had left. And she intended to keep them all safe.

She sat on the windowsill, her eyes lost on the driveway.

Even after Leo had confirmed Phoebe's death with the Elders, she half expected her to show up on their doorstep, safe and sound, a sheepish smile on her face, and a lame excuse explaining her disappearance.

At least, with Prue, they had had a body to bury.

They had had some sense of closure--- and a grave to visit.

But Phoebe--- Phoebe had just vanished.

Disappeared.

And the doubt was killing her.

When Leo had brought a trembling, feverish Cole back to the manor, she had thought it a disease. Something the Source had come up with, or maybe even just a cold he had caught in those cold mausoleum nights---

But he kept mumbling Phoebe's name, and muttering nonsense, as someone who has lost his driving
force would. They had put him to bed, Phoebe's bed, and only when he smelled her scent in the sheets, and felt the comfort of the familiar mattress beneath him did he rest.

Leo had orbed up, demanding an answer from the Elders.

It had been five days already. Five days in which they knew nothing. And five days, in which there was nothing they could do. Magic just didn't cut it anymore. She had tried bringing Prue back from the dead before--- it didn't work.

And somehow, it just didn't feel right to put Phoebe through the same.

God knows where she was. She needed Leo to come back, to tell her everything was okay--- Cole had slept through everything. He remained in bed, barely conscious, asking for Phoebe, whispering her name, crying for her... and there was nothing Piper could do or say to bring him back.

Leo had said something about a connection being broken. A link shattered, that kept Cole lost in the mists of his own mind. That only time would make it better, and to let him rest and recover.

And still, Leo did not return.

She waited for him, sitting there, biting her fingernails, a habit she had dropped when she graduated highschool returning with a vengeance.

Paige had been a great help. Distraught and weeping, she had taken over the household, and cleaned and cooked and took care of the two grieving shells that cried around the manor.

If it was one thing Paige was, it was practical. And she knew the *three* of them diving in sorrow would be of no help. And even if she was smart enough to stay clear from the Book of Shadows, she was also smart enough to know that what Piper and Cole needed right now, was normality.

So she carried on, taking out the trash, and cleaning the rooms, and dusting the furniture, aware of Piper's ghostly presence all along. Because Piper sat in the windowsill, her eyes fixated on the street, barely moving to pick up a tissue from a box nearby. Day in and day out, she sat there, waiting.

The chimes in the air told her Leo was back.

One look into his eyes was enough for Piper. He need not say anything. She could see the pain in the chocolate orbs, which, without her knowledge, mirrored his expression when he had seen her dead body atop the hospital table--- on the Day that Never Was.

But Piper hadn't seen him them. She was seeing him now.

And she understood.

One look at him, and she marched upstairs.

Silently.

There were no tears left for her to cry. Only a dull pain in her heart, a constant ache that never lessened, even as days went by.

Because she had lost another sister.

And she couldn't handle it.

Not again.

She left Leo downstairs to deal with Paige. She needed some time alone. And Phoebe's room was the quietest from the house.

She didn't remember Cole was sleeping in there until she had already walked in, and was quietly closing the door behind her.

His form was still in the bed, deadly still.

But his features displayed anguish. A tortured soul, he was. Strange, how Destiny never seemed to cut him some slack. His eyes open and unseeing, fixed on a spot in the ceiling that seemed to hold all his interest.

She had remained there, her back pressed against the door, needing the support of the wood, of the paint, of the handle she hadn't yet released--- something familiar to hold on to.

Only their slow breathing had broken the silence in the room. And that was just fine with Piper. She didn't need any more simpathy. She didn't need anyone's pity. She just needed--- what it was that she needed escaped her understanding, but one thing was certain: she would find it here.

In Phoebe's room.

"She's gone, isn't she?".

His voice was so low, his tone so sad, Piper trembled with it.

And she did not look up, because one look into Cole's eyes, and she would break down, and she couldn't break down, not now, not again, not when everything was coming down and things were falling apart---

"Yes".

She whispered it slowly, trying to stop the word from sliding through her clenched teeth. Because maybe, if she didn't say it aloud, it wasn't true.

Cole shifted in the bed, and the swish-swish of sheet sliding against sheet reached her ears. Soft footsteps followed, and then silence.

Piper and Cole had had their share of uncomfortable silences. Especially when he first came back, after Phoebe had supposedly vanquished him.

But this was different.

It was the companionable silence of two who understand each other. The comfortable quiet of two people who have been through enough, and know words just didn't cut it this time.

They stood there for a while, Cole looking out the window, where Phoebe had waited for him to nights to no end, wondering if he was ever coming back; Piper with her back to the door, her hand on a death grip with the handle, her muscles taut, her eyes closed, telling herself to breathe.

In. Out. In. Out.

Inhale. Exhale.

{Don't think. Don't think about anything. Keep your mind blank, keep your thoughts clear. Do not think, because thinking leads to questioning, and I don't have any answers right now, and I don't think I ever will}.

They never knew how long it had been, until crickets began singing, and birds quieting, and the cars running down the street became scarce and few. The soft moonlight entered through the open curtains, covering Phoebe's things, (Phoebe's life!) in a delicate silver glow.

It was eerie, how her things seemed dead--- they were infused with her happiness, with her love, with *her*, and now that she was gone, they seemed to have lost their gleam.

"I don't know what to do".

Her voice shook with contained emotions, and echoed through the room like thunder.

Cole did not answer right away. He stood by the window, his hands clenched into shaking fists, biting the inside of his cheek.

"Remember her".

His voice was steady, but the quiet whisper was enough to tell her he was distraught too.

She never heard him move. Maybe he had shimmered. Frankly, it didn't matter.

What did matter, was that as she looked up for the first time in what seemed like hours, she found herself looking into his deep blue depths, and found in them understanding and kinship.

Piper was trusting by nature. She accepted Cole as he was: a tortured demon looking for redemption. She had had her doubts about him, like everybody else. But the past few weeks, when he had become a habitual resident of the manor, sharing the bed with Phoebe and the house with them, she had gotten to know the half-demon much better.

And she had begun to trust him.

Hesitantly, she stepped forward, needing to feel physical contact. Needing something sold beside her, something she could hold on to.

Cole did not move. But he understood, because he needed it too. He barely nodded, and his body language called her forth.

Softly, slowly, as if afraid to scare him, her arms came around his waist. And she held him.

And he held her.

Piper needed reassurance, needed acceptance.

Cole needed something to hold onto.

They both closed their eyes, and pretended they were with somebody else.

Cole was hugging Phoebe, the body in his arms shifting, becoming smaller, broader, stronger. Hair going blonde, lips becoming fuller, eyes changing.

Piper just immersed herself in the feeling of being held.

She could not look at Leo right now. Not when he was the bearer of the terrible news. Not when somehow, her conscious mind held *him* responsible for Phoebe's death.

Death. How it seemed to linger around the house. How it floated above their heads, like a dark, ominous cloud, striking whenever they thought they were safe.

She breathed deeply, inhaling Cole's unique scent. Of danger, and demon, and human, and pain--- his strong chest was much broader than Leo's and the difference suddenly didn't matter anymore.

Because strong arms were around her, and they were making the pain go away, and she didn't care who it was she was hugging, or even that he was thinking about someone else all along.

Cole let the illusion wash over him.

The wound was still too raw, the pain still too fresh-- fiction mingled with reality, and he was holding Phoebe, and she was safe, in his arms, cuddling with him, purring softly. And she was alive, and safe, and here---

Piper raised her head from Cole's chest, and looked into his eyes.

Cole raised his chin, where it had rested on the top of Piper's head, and looked into her eyes.

In both, unshed tears.

In both, unbelievable pain.

In both, need to forget.

They never noticed how their lips got closer. Piper never felt the tautness of her calves as she raised on her tiptoes, and neither did Cole when the muscles in his neck protested as he brought them down.

Their breaths mixed, caressing each other's cheeks.

The house was silent, the room was dark, and time seemed to stop, as their lips came together.

It was hesitant, at first. Unsure.

But the feeling of lips under their own, of reality, of solidity, of presence--- their kiss became more desperate, wanting, needing, demanding...

Cole strong arms brought Piper closer to his body. Piper's arms came around his neck, and lifted herself more fully.

And they kissed, and as they kissed, they tried to forget, to put it behind, to stop the pain, to stop the hurting---

Piper needed to be loved, to be held; Cole needed someone to love.

But Piper wasn't Phoebe.

And Cole wasn't Leo.

They broke apart slowly, unwilling to let the dizziness go. Unwilling to return to their own bodies, where the pain was waiting to pounce on them like a tiger does its prey.

Piper's lips were swollen, unaccustomed to Cole's passion and need. Blood was flowing too fast through her veins, and it echoed in her ears, and thundered in her brain. Her fingers still locked behind his neck; her lithe body still pressed against his own.

Cole's eyes were clouded, and his breathing was coming in heavy gasps. His arms still linked around her back, holding her close, keeping her near.

In a blink, the illusion broke.

And Cole wasn't holding Phoebe, and Piper wasn't hugging Leo.

And still, they did not part.

Because it was in each other's arms that they found the solace they needed.

Misery loves company.



**************************


Before you kill me, read it again, and realize it is *not* love. It's pain. Period.

TBc...