Chapter Eleven
"What do you want from me?" Cole froze in his spot amazed that a whine had actually passed through his lips. Straightening his shoulders, he clenched his fists, "Demons don't whine." He spun and stared down at the crying baby, "It's been twenty minutes, I demand that you stop. This instant." But Chris mocked his orders by screaming louder and Cole threw his hands up in frustration. Glaring at the ceiling, he growled, "Leo, get your sorry Elder ass down here!"
Suddenly there was a tugging on his pants and he looked down to find Wyatt staring back. "Great. Now you're up. What is this, some sort of tag-team match with your mother and aunts to make sure I'm under constant torture?" The boy only tugged on his pants again and he sighed, "Look, kid, you're his brother, his big brother, and if there's anything I've learned about older siblings it's that you do anything for your younger ones so get him to stop." Almost as an after-thought, he added, "Please."
Wyatt looked from Cole to his brother and back to Cole. "Up."
"Up? What the hell does that mean?"
"Up," Wyatt said again, raising his arms in the air.
"Oh. Up." Cole complied and awkwardly lifted Wyatt in the air. "Okay, now what? As you can see, he hasn't stopped." The boy wriggled in his arms and he quickly adjusted the way he was holding Wyatt. With Wyatt now leaning against his chest, soft hair brushing his neck, Cole fought hard to quell the strange sensations stirring his heart. 'Damn you, Leo, for bringing me back. For making me feel things I shouldn't be feeling.' Sounds from Wyatt interrupted his thoughts and he focused on the toddler.
"BooLoo."
"And they say demons are hard to understand," Cole muttered.
"BooLoo," Wyatt insisted with a slight kick to his ribs.
"Look, I don't speak 'baby' and I'm beginning to think I'd've been better off vanquished by your Aunt Paige than subjected to this noise." But he suddenly got the message when Wyatt kicked him again. Following the direction of Wyatt's pointed finger, he spotted the worn blue blanket in the corner of the crib. "BooLoo, I presume."
"BooLoo," Wyatt giggled before nuzzling Cole's neck with a yawn.
As Cole covered Chris, he suggested, "Here's your BooLoo, pal, now how about some quiet? Or do you want to make a liar of your mom who said you'd sleep through." When Chris's tiny hand grabbed the blanket's edge, Cole held his breath and waited to see if the crying would cease. 'Come on, come on, come on…' The loud hoarse cries lowered in volume and, satisfied he'd done right, Cole set Wyatt down on the floor and murmured his thanks. "Now go to sleep," he ordered the toddler.
The baby was restlessly tugging on the blanket and without thinking, Cole tucked the blanket in around Chris. "Guess you were cold," he realized before jerking in surprise when Chris grabbed his finger and tearfully whimpered. "It's okay, you're safe here," he whispered. Chris snuffled in response and Cole quipped to the one who shared Piper's soulful eyes, "Oh, so now you're listening to me."
"BooLoo," Wyatt piped up with a giggle.
"Gotta love those BooLoos…Hey," he added as he created a tiny energy ball, "look what I've got." He bounced the tiny ball and smiled in relief when Chris went silent and focused on it. He glanced at Wyatt who also gazed intently as if unsure what to make of the glowing orb. "It's okay," he assured Wyatt, "it's only a little one. In fact, you wanna see a trick?"
Cole stepped back from the railing but stayed within Chris's view. "Been a long time since I did this," he apologized, "so I might be a little rusty." In his free hand, he created another tiny energy ball and then proceeded to bounce each up and down for a few moments. "Something I picked up when I was ten. Of course, I also used them for immediate kills and I did get burned a couple of times but what a rush that first time…" He threw the ball from his right hand up in the air, created a new one, and immediately began juggling the three energy balls.
Wyatt's eyes widened as the energy balls grew bigger each time they passed Cole's hands. "Ooooh."
Cole couldn't believe the satisfaction he felt at entertaining the toddler and infant. But when Wyatt stepped closer and reached out to touch, Cole dissipated the balls. "Sorry, kid, but I don't know if you've got your father's healing abilities and I'm not up for facing the witches' wrath."
"Up?"
Cole sighed but obliged and lifted Wyatt back into his arms. "Think he'll go back to sleep now?" he worried when he noticed that Chris seemed to be fighting sleep. At least the baby had stopped crying and whimpering but he still couldn't understand Wyatt's babbled response. He lightly bounced the toddler, "So what do I do with you? What's it gonna take to get you back to bed?"
Wyatt pointed to his squirming brother before rubbing Cole's chest with his small hand.
"Okay, I get you," Cole nodded before reaching down to lightly rub Chris's chest. As he continued with gentle strokes, Cole tried to ignore the pounding of his own heart as he felt the beating of the baby's heart beneath his fingers. He'd killed more than a few babies in his time while following orders he'd never even remotely thought of questioning. But until this moment, he'd never truly understood the power a baby could wield or why they'd been such prized kills. And sorrow tore at his heart both for his past actions and for himself. He felt Wyatt's small hand patting his cheek and paused to stare at the child.
"Goo," Wyatt proclaimed.
"I'm not good," Cole argued as he returned to his task of settling Chris. "I've tried and I've failed, more than once. But I am what I am and I'll get by." When he realized that Chris was asleep, he stared at the infant but quietly told Wyatt, "You know he would've been only a little older than you. Your cousin, I mean. The boy I'm not sure we would have even deserved…Do you think she ever thought about him?"
"If you truly knew Phoebe, you wouldn't have to ask."
Before Cole could completely turn to face Leo, Wyatt was orbed from his arms. Cole spun the rest of the way with alarm only to discover that the child appeared Leo's arms. "Trying to give me a heart attack?" he accused the child. But Wyatt happily babbled in reply and Cole sighed, "I need a drink."
"No you don't," Leo stated. The last thing they needed was for Cole to drown his sorrows in liquor.
Cole glared at him but didn't speak because he knew Leo was right. He'd spent the past few weeks drinking to forget, drinking in the hopes all the bad would disappear, and it hadn't worked. Of course, being sober hadn't allowed him to think clearly either but he was determined not to walk down that road again.
"C'mon, buddy," Leo kissed Wyatt's cheek, "back to bed."
"No, no, no, no…"
"Yes, yes, yes, yes," Leo replied with kisses to his son's cheeks, neck, and belly. He laughed joyfully at the peals of laughter coming from his son as he turned Wyatt upside-down. Wyatt tried to reach up and straighten so Leo helped him the rest of the way before using his powers to suspend Wyatt in mid-air. He blew more kisses into Wyatt's bellybutton and allowed himself to momentarily forget the danger looming before them all.
Cole watched father and son and wished he could ignore Belthazor's laughter at his inability to control the jealousy he felt. He needed to maintain control of his emotions and his life and, while he needed the use of his powers, he also tried to banish his demon half to the far recesses of his soul. He would never be completely human but he planned on savoring every human emotion he could feel. And if that meant jealousy and rage in addition to love and hope, so be it. 'I can do this. I can make my human half stronger. I can suppress Belthazor. I will.' But he also couldn't let the matter drop. "I need to know, Leo."
"I won't betray her confidence," Leo warned in a low tone as he lowered Wyatt back into his arms.
"I need to know," Cole repeated.
Leo kissed Wyatt's cheek as he thought of what he could reveal. "She tried to rationalize it at first, that it hadn't been your baby but a thing of evil."
Cole flushed with guilt as he thought of the day Phoebe had told him the news. At that time, Phoebe was the only link keeping his humanity grounded and having a baby with her…Her love was what had saved him. And doomed him. And to this day, he didn't know how much of it that day had been genuine happiness and how much had been self-serving satisfaction for a job well done.
Leo watched the various expressions flicker across Cole's face and continued in a quiet tone both in an effort to settle his excited son and prepare Cole for what would probably be some painful insights, "She knew the child was genetically yours and hers but as much as she wanted to believe he was created in love, she couldn't ignore that he was conceived while you were the Source. She couldn't get past the way you'd used her and tricked her. So, believing the baby to be completely evil, especially after what the Seer revealed, was the only way she could deal with it."
"We never talked about it," Cole rued. "She told me in a single sentence how it ended with the Seer but nothing more. And I never asked. Maybe because I couldn't forgive myself either."
Wyatt rested his head against Leo's shoulder and Leo began to rub the toddler's back in slow circles. "It was still too fresh. Neither of you was ready," he told Cole. "And later, things happened. You were getting desperate, Piper was pregnant, and when Phoebe's due date, what would've been her due date, neared, she had…she had a rough couple of days. Days she pretended everything was fine, days when she couldn't share her thoughts or feelings with anyone."
"But you," Cole pointed out as jealousy once again filled him. "I wasn't dead. Why couldn't she talk to me?"
"I imagine it's because you were losing control to your powers," Leo shrugged, "to the evil. Did you acknowledge the date?" Cole didn't respond and Leo nodded, "You were, for all intents and purposes, lost to her and she needed a break from you and your growing obsession with her. She needed to put distance between her present and the past if she had any hope of making the pain disappear."
Once again he was reminded that it was his inability to let go that drove Phoebe away. "I thought I'd lose her if I accepted her theory that it was over. I wanted, needed, to show her she was wrong, that we could make it work."
"She needed time," Leo corrected without reproach. He didn't want to make Cole feel worse, especially when it seemed Cole finally understood but he had to add, "She loved you and maybe if you'd both had time to recover, you might've found your way back to each other."
"She made it seem so final," Cole complained before shaking his head. "What happened then? After I died? I guess she was pretty relieved it was all over."
Leo glanced at his Wyatt who seemed too interested in the adult conversation to give in to sleep. He continued rubbing his son's back as explained, "Of course she was relieved. She no longer had to look over her shoulder in fear of what you'd try next. But relief didn't make what happened disappear. And she didn't even realize that in some ways it was worse without you available because she no longer had a real outlet to deal with what happened. You were the only one who would truly understand because you were the only one who was actually a part of it. So she did the only thing she could, she buried it. She buried all the emotions, all the hopes and dreams, all the heartache. She buried it all deep inside herself and concentrated on living."
"I understand," Cole murmured.
"But it wasn't gone," Leo informed him. "You can't overcome your problems by burying them and pretending they don't exist. As much as Phoebe tried, she couldn't go on as if it had never happened. There was still too much anger and resentment and that began to seep out. So she tried to overcompensate but all that accomplished was that she lost her way too."
"She told me about the Elders taking her powers," Cole nodded.
"That's only recently," Leo clarified. "Remember, you've been gone almost two years and a lot has happened to her in that time. Phoebe spent most of it struggling to regain her sense of self, her identity, and she hasn't always succeeded."
"I never meant to hurt her," Cole shamefully commented as he turned from Leo and glanced at the sleeping baby. "I never meant for any of this."
"I know," Leo nodded, "and I believe she knows it too. But what happened happened and it changed her. Phoebe's had to learn how to trust again. Trust in her sisters, in herself…in other men." Leo watched as Cole absorbed the meaning of his words and acknowledged, "You were the first man she'd truly let into her heart and she never wanted that to happen again. But the heart doesn't always agree with the mind and she found herself falling in love again. But once again, it didn't end with the happily ever after she'd been expecting."
"Who was he?" Cole asked in a choked voice.
"That's for Phoebe to tell you," Leo decided. "She's strong, though, a survivor. And she managed to move on after that broken affair too. But for every step of progress there seemed to be another two steps of disappointment. Most recently, it's been the premonitions of becoming a mother which, after the latest with Zankou and Kyle, I'm sure she fears will never come true."
A mother? Phoebe hadn't mentioned that part of the premonition. Of course, she hadn't mentioned a new lover either. "And now I'm back and all these feelings she's buried are bubbling inside her waiting to burst out so she can deal with them. You made a mistake, Leo, my presence is only hurting and confusing her and I think," Cole uttered in a resigned voice, "I'd better go. I'm not sure I'd be able to help against Zankou anyway."
"You can't leave."
"I have to," Cole quietly insisted. "You've made it clear she's never truly recovered from what happened between us and I won't hurt her again."
"You will hurt her if you leave," Leo argued. "Don't you get it, Cole? She never had closure because you were vanquished and she buried everything in her heart. But I know there's so much she needs to hear from you just as I know there's so much she needs to say to you."
"We talked in the kitchen," Cole told him, "before Paige interrupted."
"It wasn't enough," Leo countered, "not for what you mean to each other."
"What do mean to her but a reminder of an evil chapter in her life?" Cole bitterly questioned. "One best forgotten…"
Leo smiled as he disagreed, "You're a reminder of one of the best chapters of her life. Trust me on this."
"You made a mistake," Cole insisted.
"You are our best chance," Leo stated as Chris began to fuss. "Don't get me wrong, I didn't choose you because it would help you or Phoebe. I chose you because you are our best chance at defeating Zankou and working with the Avatars towards a utopia. So think of this as a bonus, the chance to settle things with Phoebe." He noticed Cole's skeptical expression, "You're right, you're not being promised a happily ever after but don't you think you're both entitled to some peace and the chance to move on with your lives without any strings attached? This might be your last chance, Cole. Don't blow it."
"It's not that I don't --" Cole began just as Chris wailed. And then he frowned, "What is that stench?"
Leo chuckled as he approached the crib, "Normal baby smells, Cole."
"Poop," Wyatt announced as Leo set him on the floor.
Cole grimaced as Leo lifted the screaming baby, "I'll leave you to your paternal duty then." But just as he was about to shimmer away, Leo shoved Chris into his arms. Cole immediately held Chris at arms' length away and tried to give the baby back.
"Changing him will be a good experience for you," Leo decided.
"Are you out of your mind?"
"You think you've the sole rights to insanity?" Leo paused, unable to believe he'd actually joked about the terror he'd felt when the Avatars had first made contact with him.
Cole watched him with suspicion, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Poop!" Wyatt told his father as the baby squirmed and screamed suspended from Cole's hands.
"First things first," Leo nodded approvingly to his son before turning back to Cole, "Come on, Phoebe told me how you'd gone all out that day. In all your excitement about becoming a father, didn't it occur to you what it meant to have a baby?"
Cole followed Leo to the changing table and again tried to give the baby back. "No, it didn't. Besides, isn't this what magic's for?"
Leo laughed and pushed Cole toward the table, "All women are impressed by men who can change a diaper." Cole gave him a skeptical look and he couldn't help but laugh again as Cole barely managed to keep from dropping Chris onto the changing pad. "Elder teaching a demon to change a diaper, who'd a thunk it?"
"Shut up," Cole muttered as he began to unsnap Chris's pajamas.
"Poop!" Wyatt repeated in amusement as he was lifted back into Leo's arms.
Leo couldn't keep a straight face as he watched Cole suddenly lean back in order to avoid the powerful aroma emanating from his son's messy bottom, "Poop happens, Cole. It's all part of being human."
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