Chapter 3: With You

Phoebe shivered. It wasn't cold at all, probably the air conditioning or whatever heated the room was adjusted to what a human preferred so that the item for the aliens' museum reached destination intact. It was the devastation that made her tremble as she stared ahead with dilated pupils unable to shed any tears over the fact that when she had looked down on her planet as the space invader instructed her, all was as it claimed it was. So much pain deadened her all over. The manor she didn't have the courage to look at, but she didn't want to see it anyway. She wouldn't have been able to take it. She just lay comatose on the floor instead till she felt strong arms pick her up. She wrapped her arms around Cole's neck and started to sob into his chest. The only two other remaining earthly arms were embracing her and she didn't object them being Cole's. However it was, it was better than facing grief and hopelessness alone. Nothing mattered now, good and evil didn't make sense, since none of the sides existed. It was just him and her.

"It will be all right. We'll be okay," Cole said quietly.

"What!" Phoebe pushed him away a little, "how? Just because you still have me the rest doesn't count? I cannot handle this!" She said with an exasperated, trembling voice, "we have lost everything..."

"Not necessarily, I have a plan. I think I can dimension hop us out of here. These walls protect themselves from everything that is in some way magical, but if I came out the wasteland I should be able to do this too."

"But where Cole? Where? Didn't you see what happened on Earth? Universal poison. I guess that means the same for the demons too as it means to the humans..." She stammered, not able to utter the exact terrible words, going around it and expressing it another way. She again, started to shudder and cry.

He wrapped his warm arms around her even tighter, "stop crying. I need you with me in this. We'll go back in time."

She gulped and cleaned her face into his shirt, just for the sake of argument, "even if we knew about these aliens earlier...we can't fight them. We have no weapons against them. Now, or in the past."

"We're not going to fight them. We're gonna convince them we are not a threat. I remember that while I was the Source, I heard rumours about these aliens being around, indomitable and gathering information, but I was too busy with trying to convince the demons that we were truly on evil's side to be able to give it any attention. When I came back from the wasteland they were not around anymore, so that means they decided about us being a threat around that time."

"And how are we gonna convince them that humans and demons are the best pals?"

"I don't know. But I'm sure we can figure something when we are there."

"Then what are you waiting for? Shimmer us already! We are getting further and further away from the Earth."

"That shouldn't matter. It is more of a difficulty as a time jump and passing the force field, than distancewise. Shimmering is primarily for distance, that's the easiest part. Don't worry, we are not going to arrive to destination any time soon. I've seen their maps, their home is several galaxies away and they can't distance travel that far, that is why they have built ships."

"But...but why wait?"

"Because of the number of times I had to heal myself over the last forty-eight hours. I can't do it just now Phoebe, I need to sleep."

She looked at him before pulling him into an embrace, "we are actually gonna go back to where it could still all turn out well," she whispered into his ear and they both knew she wasn't talking about the aliens. At this point in time, she very much cared if he was alive or not. Loosing him would have been as if her pain would have doubled if that was possible at all and then there would be no love, and nothing left for her and she would reel in the unctuous depths of misery and seclusion forever, "lie down," she commanded alarmed, pulling him down so his head was in her lap and ran her fingers through his hair, somehow feeling that everything should be okay now as he said it would.

tbc