Love's Intervention
Chapter Six: Angel In Heaven

Cupid lounged on his pillows, a glass of champagne in one hand and a remote in another. In front of him, a little bit away from his floating desk, was a large flat screen TV, which was also hovering above the bed. The screen currently depicted a dazed-looking Halliwell handing in her essay test twenty minutes early to her professor, who looked shocked at the early submission. Cupid grinned, put down his glass, and grabbed a bowl of popcorn instead. Things were turning quite interesting in the place he had put Phoebe in.

He lazily stretched out his arm, and pressed a button on his remote. The scene immediately switched to Piper, on the phone at the club with Dan. "Honey," she was saying, "I might run a little late today. There's some sort of trouble with the band that was supposed to be performing—so would you mind getting the groceries?" She paused, as an irate expression crossed her face. "There's a list on the fridge." Cupid pressed another button so that Piper's thoughts appeared as a caption on the bottom of the screen.

You'd better not back out on me again, it read. "We might have a guest tonight," she said. "Who? Phoebe. Yeah, her. She decided to visit us today for some reason. No, it's not decided, but I plan on inviting her." Another pause. Great, here comes another copout. "No, Dan, I'll be a little late, late enough to not have time to get the groceries, but I'll still be able to cook. So if you would please—everything's on the list. No weird culinary stuff that you don't know." Dan... "So you'll do it? Promise me. Yes? Thank you." About time you do something. I've been doing everything lately, and you've just been out with the guys watching stupid boxing. "Love you too," she ended the conversation, albeit a bit grumpily.

Cupid nodded thoughtfully to himself. Interesting. Very interesting. He changed the channel, saw Prue at her job at 415 and read a bit of her thoughts, then changed the channel again. He casually read the caption, then rubbed his eyes and read it again. He swallowed.

He sat up and went over to his desk, nearly knocking over his forgotten bowl of popcorn. He slammed his fist on an intercom button shaped like a pair of wings and roared; "Connect me to the Elders. NOW!"

Three hours later after the incident with Cole, Phoebe was at the public library near the college, going through their old newspaper archives, looking for a few clues about her situation. A part of her obviously wanted to know, and wanted a way out, but the rest of her just wanted to block out what happened with Cole. All of it, actually, from their very first meeting at that crime scene to today's disastrous kiss. It was the most idiotic thing she could've done, and she did it. So she tried to cope with it the only way she knew how; deny and forget.

She was succeeding for the most part, especially when she hit upon an article she thought was helpful, but when she expected it the least, a sweet random memory would pop up in her head. Whenever that happened, she would triple up her efforts to look through the clippings, nearly tearing them in her desperation.

Yet, the Cole situation aside, she had to admit what she found was interesting. She had found news of innocents that they've saved from their early years of Charmed existence. In each of the articles, it seemed that each innocent was in some sort of danger, and in each instance they were saved by some unknown source—the word "miracle" was used far more than once. However, every innocent that they've lost—they seemed to die in this universe in the most mundane ways possible. Of course, the reports may be false, but they couldn't fabricate the story of every innocent that they haven't saved the same way, could they?

Phoebe had felt a certain amount of indignation at her findings. What was the point of their jobs as Charmed Ones if they would be saved or killed either way? But, she supposed, that was in her world, one where she could levitate, get premonitions, and read other people's thoughts. So who was saving all these innocents out here? Maybe there's another Power of Three here, Phoebe thought suddenly. She pondered the idea bemusedly. If there was, that would, technically, make her the innocent. Strange, but there was something else bothering her that was skeptical about her newest theory.

Phoebe looked at the next newspaper in her pile. It dated back to the 80's. She shook her head—the lack of organization here was kind of pathetic. She was supposed to be looking through newspapers from 1999, though that didn't prevent newspapers from every other year from popping up. She removed the old newspaper and looked at the next one. 1994? Seriously—Phoebe stopped, staring at a caption at the bottom right hand corner of the front cover. "FAMILY OF THREE DIES IN TRAGIC CAR ACCIDENT. Story on page 12."

She flipped to the page and came across a small family portrait of a young, 13-year-old girl. With trembling hands, she lifted the paper to better read the paragraph that came along with it.

SAN FRANCISCO: A terrible accident caused by a tractor trailer resulted in three tragic deaths yesterday. The truck plowed into a four-door sedan yesterday night, causing traffic to build up along the busy streets of downtown San Francisco. The three people in the sedan, Tim and Sara Matthews, along with their teenage daughter Paige, died instantly upon impact. Local official Craig Greavly calls the accident at an official statement "an awful consequence of the blatant lack of traffic lights in and around the Bay Area." The truck driver is in stable condition at a local hospital. Friends of the Matthews family say that the three were out on their way to a family dinner when the tragic accident occurred.

The newspaper slipped from Phoebe's hands and the contents spilled onto the desk in front of her while she sat, stricken.

Phoebe sat in the backseat of a taxi, staring blankly out the window. Paige...Paige was dead. This isn't real, Phoebe tried to tell herself as the shock from the news started to fade. Just like the alternate universe Cole made. But it felt so real—and she had wanted it to be real, too, with Prue alive here, no matter how angry they were at each other. But with Paige gone—dead before she could know the meaning of being alive—how could she wish so anymore? No—she was going to find a way out of this place, and get back to where she truly belonged. And if that meant that she would never see Prue again, so be it. It was something she had moved on from a long time ago—and her living sisters' lives probably depended on her to not backtrack on that.

But before Phoebe could even think about all the demons out there that could have put her in this precarious situation in the first place, a troubled thought entered her head. Two years ago, Paige had gone back in time with Leo because she had thought for eight years that she was responsible for her parents' death. She came back with the knowledge that her parents were, quite bluntly, meant to die, so that she could live on and fulfill her destiny.

Phoebe thought as she reached for her wallet to pay the driver, as they were pulling up in front of the Manor. So, if there were no Charmed Ones here, then she had no destiny to live out. But—the reason why she lived, Phoebe remembered with a start, was because she orbed. She orbed out of the car. Maybe they weren't Charmed, maybe Patty wasn't a witch—but that didn't prevent Sam from being a Whitelighter.

Phoebe stopped moving, breathing harshly, and would have probably stayed in that position for a very long time if the driver hadn't cleared his throat very loudly. She handed him the money and got out, forgetting to tip him—in fact, quite forgetting where she was. All she knew was that magic—magic—

Magic didn't exist here. At all.

She blearily looked up at the Manor in front of her and prepared to go up the steps, but for some reason, she looked up and down the street before she did. All she saw was an old man, his back bent over, though he obviously had a good stature back when he was young. He held a cane and was taking one shaky step at a time toward the direction of the house, his face hidden from view as he was watching his feet as he walked. She kept on watching as he slowly lifted his head up and looked at her for a long time.

Phoebe began to feel uncomfortable at his scrutiny and started up the steps, but stopped when he held out a shaking hand with some effort. She began to feel bad. The poor man, he might need some help, she thought. She approached him with a kindly smile, ready to ask what was wrong, when the old man beat her to it in a cracked and wheezing voice.

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me, Phoebe? Why am I old?" Phoebe became puzzled, but quickly dismissed it. It was just the ramblings of an old man, and maybe he knew her name because she also worked at a nursing home in this universe. Hey, anything was possible. "I don't understand," he continued to stammer. "Why can't I orb?"

Phoebe stopped right in her tracks and stared at the old man's drooping face. No, it couldn't be... "Leo?" she whispered.

A/N: Whew! That was a lot of information for a short chapter, and I can only assure you that there will be even more in the next chapter. If you don't understand, just say so and I'll put up an author's note on my next chapter. Hope you enjoyed!