Love's Intervention
Chapter Seven: Angel Out of Heaven

Cupid paced the length of his office, waiting for an Elder to show up. Leave it to them to take their time when something so urgent was taking place, he thought angrily, as he kicked a stray pillow that had fallen to his feet.

He stopped abruptly when he heard the chimes of an Elder orbing in. In a second's time, the space before him became occupied with a tall man wearing white robes that seemed to hang lifelessly off his thin frame. Cupid stared at him contemptuously for a second before retreating back to his bedchair. "It's about time," he muttered, though not loud enough for the man to hear.

"Cupid," said the man solemnly. "What is the reason for your summoning?"

"Oh, please, like you don't know exactly why I called for you," he snorted. "Why can't you ever stay out of my freaking business, you Elders?" he yelled out, his ears turning red.

The man sniffed at him and turned up his nose, but didn't say anything. Cupid was known for his hot temper, especially when it came to such an old argument like this. "Cupid, if you had summoned me to make complaints about all the wrong Elders have inflicted on you over the past millennia, then I really must go. I have no time for—"

"No, Eaton, no, I'm talking about now," answered Cupid, pounding his desk for emphasis. "You know, I don't put it beyond you Elders to do this just to spite me, but to Leo? Come on, as if he doesn't have enough to deal—"

But this time, it was Eaton who cut him off. "Leo?" he said sharply. "You know what happened to him?"

Cupid stared at him. "Uh, yeah, and so do you, you're the one who put him there without telling him anything, as per usual, just so you can keep a damn eye on my affairs—"

"Cupid," said Eaton, with strained patience, "I'll put this simply. What the hell are you talking about?"

Cupid stopped, his anger quickly draining as his ears faded back into their normal coloring. "This is not good."

Phoebe helped Leo up the steps to the Manor and to the wicker chairs on the porch, as they were closest seats available, and she wasn't sure if Leo could stand much longer. As soon as they were both sitting, she turned her attention to the old man. "Leo..." she couldn't bring herself to speak. He might've been old, but she could still see the semblance to the young man she knew, no matter how white his hair was. "All I know is that here, there's no magic. No Power of Three, no anything. I woke up in an apartment across the city which I supposedly share with my friend from New York—I came here, they didn't even know me, Piper and Prue I mean, yeah and that's another thing. Prue's alive here, and Paige's dead, she died in the accident which she survived in our world..." she trailed off. "I'm sorry, I'm rambling. Leo, are you okay?"

He squinted at her. "Where's Piper?" he asked.

Phoebe swallowed. Oh God, she thought. How can I tell him that she's married to Dan? "I don't know," she replied, evading the question. "Maybe at the club? But Leo—don't you get it? It's why you can't orb. It's why you're...well, why you're at the age you're supposed to be. There's no magic."

He nodded sadly. "I see," he said. He looked longingly at the house, and then sighed. "I see."

"Leo," Phoebe tried again. "You're an Elder. Do you know what's happening now? Why we're here? Do you know of any demon that could've put us here?"

He shook his head, slowly. "I don't know why I'm here. Why don't we go ask Piper?"

Phoebe put her head in her hands. This was hopeless. Her only ally was senile; she wondered whether he really had any idea what he was talking about. Not that she could really blame him—how old was he exactly, anyways?. "We're never gonna get out of here, "she muttered to herself.

"But why?" Leo persisted. "Why am I old? Why am I alive?"

She felt like snapping at him. "Because—" she stopped. She gawked at him. "Leo. You're alive!"

Leo nodded. "I know." He shook his head again, like he was trying to get rid of cobwebs in his head. "I feel strange. I wasn't thinking very clearly, but I am now. Like it takes some time for my brain to kick in." A serious, intelligent expression crossed his face, and Phoebe nearly screamed for joy as she saw the real Leo that she knew so well, not just a shadow of his former self.

"I think I know why I'm alive," Leo said, putting his right ankle carefully on his left knee. "If there's no magic here, like you said, then I wasn't supposed to die. The Elders planned my death, you know, so that I could become a Whitelighter. Also because I was a future contender as a Whitelighter for the future Charmed Ones—you guys. But if there is no you guys, then, well,..." he gripped a piece of skin from his arm. "I lose my collagen."

It made sense. But still..."How about Sam, then? I doubt Mom would have an affair with an extremely older man. And, believe me, I saw the family portrait—that was definitely Paige, with his DNA and all."

"That would be because he wasn't, not like me anyways. He was born much later than I—and, in this situation—" he screwed up his face as he calculated their ages. "—they were, at most, 15 years apart from another. A bit apart, but we've seen worse." He smiled weakly at Phoebe.

Indeed they have. Piper and Leo, for example. Not to mention her and Cole... "Oh my God. I knew it. It has to be." Phoebe jumped out of her seat and started pacing. "Its Cole, isn't it? Oh, I am such an idiot. To think—"

"Phoebe?" asked Leo, his eyes watching his former charge pace the patio.

She turned to him. "Cole's here," she hissed. "What the hell is Cole doing here, looking thirty-four when he was born in the 19th century? It's him, it has to be. I don't know what he's doing alive, but he almost had me fooled, pretending like he didn't know me." She stopped pacing and looked at Leo, seething. "Another one of his damned alternate universes. He's really running out of ideas, isn't he? But to create one without magic? What is he driving at?"

"Wait, wait," Leo held out his hands, trying to comprehend what Phoebe had just told him. After a while, in which Phoebe became even more impatient, he spoke his opinion. "It isn't him."

"What?" she said incredulously. "Are you joking? How else can you explain it?"

"There might be a possibility, of course, but from how I see it, it isn't likely. First of all, he's dead—"

"Yeah, like that stops him," Phoebe muttered.

"Second," Leo said pointedly, "He was powerful when he came back, Avatar-level powerful, but not enough to keep an Elder here. Now, Avatars may be more powerful than I am, but they don't possess the power to keep me trapped in an alternate universe. Thirdly—it doesn't feel like an alternate universe."

"So?" said Phoebe grudgingly, seemingly unable to let go of her view of Cole as the culprit. "He can make something else."

"He can't make this," Leo said firmly. "Whatever powers he has, he cannot create a whole new world."

"A new world?" Phoebe echoed. "What—?"

"A parallel world, if my theory is correct. It's like another dimension, except..." he rubbed his temple, looking tired. "This world is exactly like our world, the one that we live in, except for one deciding factor."

"Magic." She sighed and stared at the curtained windows of the Manor. "So this world is the same to ours, except that it doesn't contain magic. It still doesn't explain Cole though. If he didn't manipulate this...and how did we get here, anyways? How did you get here? All I know is that I went to bed in there"—she pointed toward the house—"and ended up in my 'supposed' apartment in the year 2001."

"See, I was different," said Leo thoughtfully. "I was—well, actually, see, I was orbing in to check up on Wyatt in the middle of the night, when suddenly I was caught up in something, something like a vortex, but different. And then I woke up in a different house with a nurse that takes care of me. So strange. But who has the power to do that? Only the Elders. But they would tell me if they were to do something like that..."

"Right," Phoebe murmured, only half paying attention. She was trying to figure out what she was doing the night before she ended up in this parallel world, but for some reason, she couldn't remember...she shook her head angrily at the loss of memory and asked Leo another question that was on her mind. "So, when you say there's no magic, does that mean there's no black magic as well?"

"I should suppose so. If there are no denizens of good, then there are no denizens of evil. A balancing act, you know." Leo sat silently for a while. "So that means Cole must be an innocent as well, though I'm still not sure what his role is here." They both remained silent for a while, before Leo suddenly asked Phoebe a question. "You say that it's the year 2001?"

Phoebe nodded. "That puzzled me too. I mean, if this world is almost the same as ours, as you say, then why are we in this year? Or were we sent to another world in the past? That's just really annoying." Her eyes suddenly grew round. "Is this like the time when me and Paige switched bodies, except with our other-world selves?"

"No, I don't think so. I think that our consciousness replaced their consciousness, because I swear I should remember a story about this...I know it has some significance, but being an old man..." he chuckled self-deprecatingly. "But I do know about the time frame. Time in different worlds is not relative to each other, so what feels like a day here may be a year or two hours in our world."

He started to say something else when both their attentions became focused on the black SUV that was driving down the quiet street. Phoebe knew it was Piper driving in that car, and without looking at Leo, she knew that he knew it as well.

They silently watched as Piper pulled into the driveway, and silently watched as she got out of the car. Piper looked back at them, not noticing anything wrong. "Hey Phoebe," she said, then glanced over to her companion. "Hello, Mr. Wyatt," she greeted him politely. "How's Nancy?"

Phoebe glanced over to Leo to give him a questioning glance about who Nancy was, when she saw that something was wrong with him. Gone was the intellectual look on his face, replaced by glassy eyes and a sense of senile dottiness. "Piper?" he asked, a childish hope in his voice.

Phoebe turned to his older sister, wondering what her reaction would be and trying to come up with excuses for his behavior at the same time. But Piper didn't seem to find anything wrong about his response. She smiled again at the bent man before her. "Yes, it's me," she said. She turned to her younger sister, as if asking for an explanation as to why he was there. Phoebe answered immediately.

"I was coming over to your house because I wanted to see you again, but then I caught sight of—" Phoebe caught herself. "Mr. Wyatt here, and I thought he was having some trouble walking, so I brought him to these chairs. I hope you don't mind," Phoebe finished, her voice low and her head close to Piper's the whole time.

Piper shook her head slightly. "It's fine," she whispered. "Mr. Wyatt—his first name's Leo, by the way—he is such a nice old man, but he has some trouble with remembering himself sometimes. I'll just escort him back to his house, and his nurse, Nancy, will take care of him. You don't have to worry about it, and it's better if I brought him back," Piper continued when she saw Phoebe about to protest. "Nancy's rather protective of him, and besides, you don't know where he lives." She paused. "While we're at it, Phoebe, do you want to swing by today for some dinner at around 7:30?"

Phoebe smiled genuinely, though a part of her was still worrying about Leo and the effects that Piper had on him. "Sure," she said. "I actually have to go now," Phoebe realized. "I have to go to my job."

Piper laughed. "I know the feeling," she responded. "The only reason why I'm here now is because I forgot the publicist's phone number of the band that's playing tonight, and no one else seemed to have it. See, I'm kind of the owner of this club, P3." Her face slightly flushed, as she looked both bashful and proud.

"Really? That's great!" answered Phoebe, feeling like she owed her sister something for her incredible hospitality. "P3? As in Phoebe, Piper and—" she caught herself again. "Prue?"

Piper smiled, seemingly glad at both Phoebe's reply to the news and to how quickly she had caught on. "I know the three of us have never been so close, but I've always thought that it was interesting how all the women in our family have names starting with 'P'. And, well, I don't know—I felt like incorporating that, somehow."

Phoebe smiled, though it quickly waned when she saw Leo staring dotingly at Piper. I seriously need process all this information, she thought. Because this is just a little bit too weird, even for me. She shifted her weight from one foot to another and told Piper that she had to leave, then quickly went off to her job.

A/N: If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. Hope you enjoyed and please review!