Part Three

It had been nearly three weeks since Piper had called him and he finally accepted the fact that he needed to talk to Phoebe. And so he stood in Phoebe's dark bedroom and watched her sleep. She was snuggling a pillow under the covers and, when he closed his eyes, he could picture himself being the one she was snuggled against instead of that pillow. He smiled but when he opened his eyes he forced himself to look at her objectively.

And what he saw only caused him to frown with worry. She seemed so much smaller, so much younger, and so much sadder in her sleep. At least that was how he felt. All the efforts he'd put into saving Piper's relationship with Leo in order to spare Phoebe a fate in limbo seemed to have been for naught because he looked at Phoebe now and felt her slipping away.

"Did Dex hurt you that badly," he whispered, "or is it still because of me?" He suddenly found himself sitting on the bed facing her. And his hand moved independently as it lightly swept some hair from her eyes. And when she murmured unintelligibly into the pillow, he called her name, "Phoebe…"

She shifted position but didn't waken and he frowned slightly because, from what Piper had said, she needed her rest and this wouldn't be an easy conversation for her to have. Unfortunately he didn't have the luxury of letting more time pass so he called her name again. He caressed her cheek and couldn't stop himself in time from leaning forward and kissing her gently on the lips.

She smiled as she felt the warm familiar sensations upon her face and slowly opened her eyes. He looked back at her with such love that she nearly cried. She reached up and traced his lips with her finger and sleepily told him, "I love you but I need to sleep right now." She closed her eyes and frowned with annoyance when he called her name again. "I'll make it up to you," she drowsily promised.

"Honey, you have to wake up. We need to talk." Cole sat back and watched as Phoebe truly wakened. And when she shot up in bed and scrambled back against her headboard, clutching the pillow in front of her, he tried to hide his disappointment as he calmly tried to assure her, "I'm not here to hurt you."

"You, you, you can't be here," she exclaimed. "You're, you're gone. You don't exist."

"Not in your realm," he quietly told her. He'd practiced this speech a thousand times before when he nearly gave into temptation to see her and her reaction was about as he'd imagined. "And I can't come back here, at least not for more than brief amounts of time. I'm not alive, Phoebe, and I'm not a ghost. I just am."

But she couldn't stop herself from trembling, "You're what? What are you? How are you here?"

"I exist in a realm of limbo," he explained, "and I'm here because Piper called me."

"Limbo?" Confusion gave way to anger as Phoebe understood what he'd implied. She practically threw the pillow away from her and repeated, "Limbo? Limbo as in being an old friend to help Piper, limbo?" When he nodded, she didn't think and simply reacted by quickly leaping forward and slapping him hard across his cheek.

"I suppose I deserved that," he quietly commented as he covered the sting with his hand. But when he looked at Phoebe, he saw the shock taking over and he inched towards her and slowly reached for her hand that was now covering her open mouth. She barely reacted and he was more worried by the way her eyes had widened and she barely seemed to be breathing. Carefully pulling her close, he slowly wrapped his arms around her and told her, "I never meant to hurt you. I only wanted to love you, for us to love each other. But I made a lot of terrible mistakes along the way and I know you can't forgive me for much of it but I hope you'll --"

"You're here?"

Her voice was muffled by his chest and he nearly missed the whispered question. He looked down and kissed the top of her head, "I'm scared for you, Phoebe. I'm scared because I feel you slipping away and I don't know how to save you."

"I don't understand," she uttered as she kept her eyes tightly shut and tried not to relax in his arms. Because if she did, if she let him in again, she might never recover from losing him.

He gently pried her loose and nearly smiled when he realized she didn't know that her arms were wrapped so tightly around his waist. Sliding his hands to her cheeks, he informed her about his place in limbo and how he was now meant to help those who were on their way to being lost forever.

"Am I lost?" she asked in a daze as she kept staring into his eyes. All she saw reflected back was love. There was no hint of the demon or the madman he once was. "Are you real?"

"For the moment," he admitted. "But I told you, I can't stay long in this world and I need you to understand what happened that night, that magic was involved but that it wasn't evil or wrong."

She didn't understand at first but as her mind began clearing she slowly pulled back from his touch. "I'm married," she told him.

"I know."

"It's my fault really," she continued, "because I put so much effort into making that premonition a reality. I had a premonition of being married that turned out to be the result of a spell and I never should've thought of making it work. I forced it to be something it wasn't and now we're all paying the price."

"How is having a baby paying a price?" he thoughtfully asked before gazing at her belly that was hidden behind the oversized nightshirt she wore. "You've waited for this baby for a long time, Phoebe. Why can't you let the rest go?"

"Because," she reached for the pillow and clutched it in front of her, "it wasn't real. It was all part of the spell. That's why you're here, isn't it, to tell me that magic created this baby I'm carrying?"

"You and Dex created that baby," he claimed. "I had nothing to do with it."

"Are you denying you were there?" she boldly questioned. "Because that's the only explanation I came up with. You were there Cole in Dex's body. He saw me through your eyes and he felt what you felt and my wedding night was as much yours as it was Dex's."

He didn't speak for a long moment and finally nodded, "I had no idea what happened. One minute I was helping a poor soul decide that suicide wasn't the answer and the next I was in bed with a beautiful woman who I knew to be you."

"You saw through the glamouring?"

"I saw through to your soul," he clarified. "You can't hide it from me, Phoebe. You never could. But now, being in limbo, now I'm connected to you in a way I never was before. I don't interfere, I promise you that, but I do worry about you."

"You have interfered," she accused without bitterness. "You said so yourself."

"Because your soul was on the line," he answered without apology. "But that night I had no control and I couldn't, no, I wouldn't, hurt you by confiding in you the truth. You were happy, confused but happy, and I didn't want to ruin that for you."

"It doesn't matter because it's over," she shrugged. "Dex finally believes that he's going to be a daddy but he's too hurt and, as soon as this baby's born, he's going ahead with the divorce."

Cole tenderly wiped away a tear from her cheek and tried not to smile when she unknowingly leaned into his palm. "He'll do right by this child, Phoebe. He's a good man." She shrugged but didn't speak and he asked, "Are you okay, physically, I mean."

She nodded, "This pregnancy couldn't be going any better." She looked back at him, "What about you, Cole?"

"I've made my peace with how I lived my life," he acknowledged, "and I am willing to do the atonement I need."

"That's not what I mean." For the first time, he seemed confused and she spelled it out for him, "I mean by this baby. Will you do right by this baby?"

"I have nothing to do with this baby," he quietly said. "As much as I wish…Phoebe, I need to know you're okay. That's why I came back. I need to know that you're thinking clearly and that you've got hope for the future."

"Hope?" Tears stung her eyes, "Of course I've got hope for the future." She pushed aside the pillow and grabbed his hand and, before he could pull it away, she pressed it to her small bump. He wouldn't feel anything, the baby was to small for that, but she smiled for him anyway, "Do you feel that? That is our hope for the future. She's as much yours as she is Dex's because she was created with love, your love, our love."

"You, you didn't know…" But Cole couldn't bring himself to remove his hand as he wished desperately to believe her.

"Maybe not," she acknowledged, "but the love you felt for me that night had been something I shared with you in those memories. Our love was real…" She gazed into his eyes and hesitantly added, "And still is."

"What are you saying?" he asked in a choked voice.

"I'm saying," she cleared her own throat, "that maybe now I can finally admit to myself that I will always treasure the love we had, Cole. And that when I look at this baby, I will know that there's a part of me that will always love you."

Too stunned to say anything more than, "Thank you," Cole found himself fading from her bed.

"We're not finished, Cole," she warned him before he disappeared completely, "not by a long shot." And with a relieved smile, she settled back under the covers and, for the first time in weeks, slept with the knowledge that everything would turn out fine after all.

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