Change of Heart

Chapter 3: Goodbye.

by Lilian.

lilian413 at yahoo dot com

Author's Note: Sometimes, reading your wonderful reviews is all that keeps me going. I'm not gonna lie to you: truly, this story would not be what it is without you guys to cheer me on through the process.

I'm so glad you're enjoying this new version of CoH… I know I am!

Now, enjoy, and see you next Saturday!


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"Cole! Cole!"

Someone was calling him. His name, that was his name, wasn't it? Cole—no, it wasn't. His name wasn't Cole; that was a human name and he was anything but human.

Oh, but you are human, little one. At least half of you is.

He panicked. That voice, he knew that voice. He had heard it before, in between screaming and blood and tears, had heard it as power sizzled across his skin and tried to burn the human in him away.

Aaah, yes! Scream for me, little hybrid.

The tattoo on his arm pulsed, the thorned rose coming to life and clawing at his flesh. He screamed, because that was the only thing he could do. But he had no voice left, and his mouth tasted blood as his injuries bled him dry.

"Damn it, Cole! Wake up!"

Again, the first voice. Female, he thought it was, and most definitely not the Source. He concentrated on that because he knew if he didn't, he would fade away into the darkness that even now licked at his legs. Light at the end of the tunnel, a single point of light in the infinite shadows around him and he stretched his hand – please! – and then there was light.

He fought against something that tried to keep him down, fought against restraints that threatened to chain him again.

"It's us, Cole. Just us. You're safe here."

Warm, comforting—he identified Piper as the owner of that female voice that had saved him from the darkness, his beacon of light in the world of shadows. He clung to her arm like a drowning man, certain that he was bruising her but too scared to care. She said nothing, and instead clung back to him and they held each other as the manor shook around them, trembling as if the world was coming to an end.

"What—" he paused, tried to breathe and found it incredibly difficult to do so, "What is happening?"

His voice was lost as debris fell from the ceiling and Paige screamed and orbed in place. Where the hell was Leo? And what was going on?

"Leo brought you home, don't you remember?"

Piper's eyes were wide and terrified: even from his place on her lap, he could hear the thunderous beating of her heart. A particularly big tremor brought Paige to her knees and she skidded across the floor, driven away from them despite Piper's efforts to hold on to her shirt.

"PAIGE!"

The cry made Cole wince: his over-sensitized ears resented the loud call and he made a move to stand up. "I'll… get her."

He only got so far. His legs would not hold him and the shaking floor was no help.

About five feet away from them, the ceiling gave out and toppled down on the couch, just inches away from where Paige had just been. "We have to get out here", he said, more to himself than to anyone else. And he did the only thing he could do: he grabbed Piper's hand, cold and clammy despite the intense heat and shimmered to where he guessed Paige must be.

Reappearing in the solarium, he only had one moment to catch a glimpse of Paige's dark hair before the young witch flung herself at him and pushed both him and Piper out of the way of the falling grandfather's clock. He stumbled back, fell, and just as his head hit the floor, he remembered what had happened.

Phoebe—Phoebe was dead.

That was why the house was coming apart. And there was nothing he could do about it.

He was unconscious after that.


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She didn't know how long it had been. There was no sun in the Underworld and her days had all blended into one continuous dusk-like time, until she couldn't really say what the sun had once looked like. Or maybe that was just a reflection of her inner state of mind.

When the Source had said no harm would come to her child, not while she was still unborn at least, he had meant it. But Phoebe had come to realize pain could come from many sources. And that emotional pain hurts in places physical pain could never touch.

A song came to mind and it haunted her, driving her mad one verse at a time.

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

There had been no rescue attempts. The Source had taken the time and effort to make sure she knew all about her sisters. She had seen, through his magic, how the manor was almost destroyed as an earthquake the likes of which San Francisco had never seen befell the city. The Source explained it was the breaking of the Power of Three—the final link in the proverbial chain had collapsed, releasing energy into the ground. She had watched as Cole tried to save Piper and Paige, failing as he fell prey to the erasure of his membership in the Brotherhood of the Thorn. She knew how much power came to the demons in their ranks; Cole had explained it to her in their dealings with Tarkin. What she had not realized was that being cast off from the Brotherhood would incapacitate him so much.

The destruction of the Power of Three was a monumental event. But she was alive, they had to know that! Leo could still feel her, her soul was not in heaven… she wasn't dead yet!

"He is in excellent form now, Phoebe. Why hasn't he come for you?"

She didn't even cry out in surprise when the voice came from out of nowhere. She was used to the Source's tricks by now, and besides, it was what he was saying that upset her, not how he said it.

Phoebe did not answer. She knew it would only fuel him further; give him the chance to pick at her insecurities. He seemed to be doing a fine job of at all by himself.

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

She shook her head before she could stop herself, his words ringing true in her tired mind. Cole could shimmer into the Underworld as he pleased—there was no power in heaven or hell that could keep demons out of their abode. So why hadn't he come?

And when had been the last time she had eaten something? She couldn't really remember. And sleep—she hadn't slept in days. Maybe that was why she was so damn tired all the time…

"Could it be" the Source continued, unheeding of her silence and knowing exactly the effect he was having on her, "could he have moved on, I wonder?"

Love. It was an emotion most humans coveted: they treasured it once they found it, they despaired if they didn't. It was also one of the most fragile of human emotions, held together by scraps of dreams and high hopes that could be easily brought down. The Source particularly enjoyed watching his captive crumble under his endless torment, becoming less and less certain of Belthazor's love. It is a simple thing, really, to let love fade… without reassurance it is easily destroyed. One day, not too long from now, he would break her spirit and finally own her completely. It didn't hurt that he got great pleasure in watching the witch doubt herself beyond the point of reason.

He saw the seeds of uncertainty blossoming in Phoebe's eyes. They were like dark saplings, drinking in her self-confidence and draining her will. All he had to do now was nurture them with precisely placed hits and, like a house of cards, the witch's heart would surrender to him.

There was something else that worried him. Something he hadn't counted on.

The child's parenthood was showing, demanding much more nourishment 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.

He had to do something; otherwise both mother and daughter would slip from his grasp.

And that would definitely not do.


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Piper had not smiled for days.

There really wasn't anything to smile about, anyway. She had recently lost a sister, no, make that two sisters to Evil. And she didn't have anything else left in her to sacrifice.

Destiny be damned, she had given up.

Leo, Paige and – Goddess forbid! – Cole were all the family she had left. And she intended to keep them all as safe as she could.

She sat on the windowsill, her eyes lost on the driveway. Behind her, the manor was half on the ground, half still standing, as aftershocks of the earthquake still woke San Francisco from its peaceful slumber. Repairs were on the way and the handyman had not been the first to notice that most of the house required serious work, except for the bedrooms. It was strange, considering the amount of damage the rest of the manor had suffered, that the three bedrooms had escaped unscathed while the living room could no longer be recognized. The fates had spared them, perhaps in hopes that with a good night's rest she and Paige would be up and about in no time.

Screw them, she thought, fighting back the tears. She was done. Done crying, done waiting, done having her family killed in a war she didn't want to fight.

Back in the kitchen, the small TV blared on as newscasters around the globe tried to explain the sudden earthquake that had hit the city. Absurd theories were the order of the day, but none of them as insane as the truth: how could she explain to millions of people that they had lost their homes, their jobs, their lives because her sister was dead?

Leo had confirmed Phoebe's death with the Elders. She hadn't really needed confirmation: the triquetra on the cover of the Book of Shadows had split into three separate ellipses and that was all the proof Piper needed.

And to top it all, she had a sick demon in her house. Leo had brought Cole home in the throes of a feverish nightmare. The half-demon had thrashed about as if mad, screams erupting from his throat like a haunted man. Then the earthquake had started and he had woken up—Piper still had the finger-shaped bruises to prove it. She didn't mind them: they were a nice reminder that there was someone as upset as she was with this whole thing. Besides, she distinctively remembered leaving fingernail trails on Cole's skin herself. She didn't remember much after that.

Cole had shimmered them both towards Paige – her stomach still turned at the memory: she would take orbing over shimmering any day of the week – and then fainted as his rose tattoo burned away with black fire. Luckily for all of them, Leo had showed up right then, orbing them all to safety.

Afterwards, when the earthquake was over, they had returned to the manor with heavy hearts. The Elders had explained. With calm, controlled voices, they had laid out her sister's death. And told Piper and Paige their days as Charmed Ones were over. Without the Power of Three they were nothing more than powerful witches, and that would not do. She didn't know what else they were going to say, because at that point she had blown up the marble columns behind them and Leo had thought it wiser to orb them back home. He had returned to heaven afterwards, to receive further instructions, after making sure Piper was more or less fine.

She was a far cry from fine. But she had sent Leo away anyway. She couldn't look at him right now.

And Cole—Cole was resting upstairs. In Phoebe's bed, where he had remained ever since returning home. She wished she could do the same: crawl into bed and hide under the covers, pretend this was all just one long, horrific nightmare and wake up to her family alive and well. Instead, she remained right where she was, watching as her neighbors tried to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.

Paige had been a great help. Despite being as heartbroken as the rest of them, her young sister had taken over the household and cleaned and cooked and took care of things Piper didn't want to think about. Piper had half-memories of Paige bringing her coffee, but her shaky hands had been unable to hold on to the cup. She also remembered Paige saying something about Cole not eating, but Piper couldn't bring herself to care.

The chimes in the air told her Leo was back.

One look into his eyes was enough for Piper. He need not say anything. There was pain in his eyes, pure undiluted pain. Unbeknownst to her, the expression in Leo's face was the exact same he had worn on the Day that Never Was, when he had seen her dead body on that hospital bed. A dead sister had sent him away that day, sent him into the Underworld to retrieve the third of them. Ironic that now, the roles were reversed and Piper was the one pushing him away.

One look at him and she marched upstairs.

He did not follow.

She left Leo downstairs to deal with Paige. She needed some time alone.

Without realizing it, her feet led her to Phoebe's room. A chair left in the corridor smashed into her hip and she barely felt it. The dull, pulsing ache in her leg was nothing compared to the sound of her heart breaking inside her chest. The pieces fell and clawed at her insides, and she felt like ripping out her own skin just to make it stop.

She didn't remember Cole was sleeping in Phoebe's room until she had already walked in. By that point she was quietly closing the door behind her and she felt like an intruder, walking into his mourning. But then she looked at him, deadly still on the bed, and wondered if they couldn't help each other through it. It was the two of them who suffered the loss the hardest—she was Phoebe's closest sister and Cole was Phoebe's love. Who better than each other to understand the pain?

She remained there, back pressed against the door, needing the support of the wood, of the handle she hadn't yet released—something familiar to hold on to. Cole made no move to acknowledge her presence. She didn't mind.

Only their slow breathing broke the silence of the room. Hers, rapid and shallow, hoping that by forcing her lungs to work overtime her tears would not fall. His, much slower and much deeper, the sounds of a torn soul. Piper realized it was just fine with her. She didn't need sympathy. She didn't need pity. She just needed—what it was that she needed escaped her understanding, but one thing was certain: she would find it here.

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

Cole hadn't been there when the Elders had broken the news to them. He had been back in San Francisco, feverish and ill, left behind lest the Elders kill him on sight. Piper thought it was the perfect epitome of how very wrong the Elders were: to forbid Cole admittance into Heaven when all he had done was protect them…

His voice was so low, his tone so sad Piper trembled with it. It made the tears return with a vengeance, brimming her eyes until she could barely see. Grinding her teeth, she pushed them back. She would not cry. She would not cry.

"Yes."

The word slipped through her lips like a phantom kiss. It echoed around the room incredibly loud, and it made things come into a sudden focus. Cole shifted in the bed and the swish-swish of sheet 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 individuals who understand each other. The comfortable quiet between two people who have been through enough, and know words just don't cut it this time.

They stood there for a while, Cole looking out the window, right at the spot where Phoebe had waited for him on nights to no end; Piper with her back to the door, her hand still with a death grip on the handle, muscles taut, 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. Don't 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 the cars running down the street became scarce. Soft moonlight entered through the open curtains, covering Phoebe's things—Phoebe's life!—in a delicate silver glow. It was eerie, how even 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 glow.

"I don't know what to do."

Her voice shook like a leaf in the wind, and it made her release her grip on the door handle. Her fingers were numb with lack of blood-flow and they stung as it resumed. She flexed her hand, unconsciously trying to quicken the recovery and felt nausea rolling in the back of her throat: Phoebe would never recover. Ever.

Biting her bottom lip until she drew blood, Piper waited for Cole's reply. He did not answer right away. He stood by the window, hands clenched into tight fists. He was the classic image of tall, dark and handsome: a dark prince come to sweep her sister off her feet.

"Remember her."

His voice was steady, unlike hers, but there was something else in it that spoke of anguish as deep as her own. An insubstantial quality, a slight intonation in his words—Piper couldn't name it, but it was there.

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

What did matter was that as she looked up, she found herself looking into his deep blue eyes and found in them a sea of understanding and kinship.

He was tall. Taller than she remembered. Had they ever been this close? She couldn't really say.

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 and away from the door. She felt suddenly naked, exposed as the security of the wooden surface behind her disappeared. Ashamed, she turned away, desperate to get away from him before he could see the shadows in her eyes.

He stopped her. A warm hand on her shoulder, he softly turned her back around. Piper did not fight him—why should she? —and gazed into his eyes, letting the ocean in them drown her down.

"Remember her", he repeated, for both their sakes. And then it was as if something had given inside of him, some door had opened and she gasped at the waves of emotion that came crashing down.

Softly, slowly, as if afraid to scare him, her arms came around his waist. And she held him, trying to contain that onslaught that threatened to overwhelm them both. .

And, surprisingly, he held her back.

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. This was what she needed right now: strength, power, anger—things Leo could not give her right now. She couldn't even look at Leo right now. Not when he was the bearer of the terrible news. Not when somehow her subconscious 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 chest was 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. Alive. Warm in his arms, holding on to him real tight…

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, the need to forget.

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

Their breaths mingled, 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, the reality of it, the body behind it—their kiss became desperate, wanting, needing, demanding...

Cole's strong arms brought Piper closer to his body. Piper's hands came around his neck and lifted her more fully. He tasted like ash, like blood, but Piper realized it was her own… she had bitten so hard on her bottom lip she had drawn blood. The taste of it seemed to fuel Cole's passion further and the kiss became urgent.

And they kissed and as they kissed, they tried to forget, to put it behind them, to stop the pain—

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 fervor and need. Blood was flowing too fast through her veins and it echoed in her ears and thundered in her brain. Her fingers were 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.


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

TBC...