The television show "Charmed," including the characters of the Piper Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, Paige Matthews, Leo Wyatt, and Cole Turner, is copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc.

Cole stepped back and raised his head suddenly. Then he let Stone drop and went to Phoebe, standing behind her and putting his arms around her. "Don't think I won't be back," he told Stone, and shimmered both himself and Phoebe out of the room.

They rematerialized outdoors. Cole's arms were clenched around Phoebe, and she could feel his breath coming fast.

"All right, now I believe you're not the Source," she said.

It was the last thing he expected her to say. She pulled away from him and turned to face him.

"In hindsight, I realized that when you were the Source you were calmer, much more in control," she said. "It was when the conflict between your human and demon halves was pretty evenly matched that you would lose it. Like you did just now."

"The guy knows, Phoebe. When he was talking about existent portals, he was telling the truth. The Seer is on her way, I can practically smell her. And he'll sell the information to her because he's pissed at Leo."

"Or maybe because he resents being thrown around his living room."

The rueful expression on Cole's face admitted the truth of her statement; but then he added, "That works sometimes, you know."

Phoebe looked around. "Where are we?"

Cole indicated the berm, behind which a glow of sodium vapor light rose eerily. "Stone's back yard. We're not going anywhere. The Seer is going to track this jackass down well before midnight." Even in the dim light she could see a questioning look on his face. "If Stone just – disappeared – "

"No. Absolutely not."

"I don't mean kill him. I mean a quiet kidnapping."

"And then what? Keep him in chains at the Manor until we get rid of the Seer?"

"Well, it's a thought."

Muted light suddenly gleamed from a window at the garage end of the house. Stone had hung Venetian blinds over the windows, but the light bled around the edges and through a crevice where one slat hung crooked. They slipped over to the window. Cole bent slightly to peer through the crevice, and immediately understood why Stone parked his car in the driveway. The garage was his workshop. Just in the area visible through the crevice, Cole could see part of a whatnot covered with magical objects from a skull to feathers, part of an astrological chart on the wall, and Stone himself, moving near a table covered with cauldrons, cups, and stones.

"What's he doing?" Phoebe whispered.

"Purging crystals in sea salt."

"Oh, damn. I told Piper I'd do that last week, and forgot."

Gently, Phoebe leaned against the wall. Cole kept his gaze inside the garage.

"Tell me something," she whispered. "How do you have demonic powers? Our Cole was a mortal man when the Source possessed him."

"So was I. Something about the spell. You – they – exorcised the Source's consciousness, but somehow the powers remained. Leaving me back at square one: human form, human soul, demonic powers, demonic rage." A flicker of a smile in the light from the crevice. "Paige wasn't best pleased."

"How – "

Phoebe looked away for a moment, swallowed, took a breath, continued.

"How did they know that the Source had possessed you?"

"I told you. I guess he never did."

"No. No. You must have wanted – " Her voice was breaking and he glanced at her, but she forged ahead – "more than he did – what did we – what did I – do differently?"

Cole gave her his attention for a moment. His voice was gentle. "Well, of course, I don't know. But I doubt if you did anything differently in this reality. The Source was very strong, and my own demonic tendencies supported him. There was a part of me that wanted to be the Source. The other part just barely managed to tell you what was happening."

"When?"

He was quiet for a moment; clearly it was a difficult subject for him. "I ingested the Hollow – to save your lives and kill the Source. But when the Hollow was extracted, the Source's consciousness was left inside me."

"Same as here."

"I knew immediately what had happened. Fought it mentally. Slept badly that night, rotten nightmares."

"I remember."

"The next morning, the Seer pulled me to her. Told me this was her plan from the beginning. I could have killed her. But she started talking about a plan to vanquish my old enemy, the Source's old enemy. I was interested. Have to admit it. I rematerialized in the bathroom, knew no one else was in there. Started out the door, and almost ran into you in the hall."

(She remembered this. Her sense of unease. How can you be uneasy the day after you kill your mortal enemy? Cole had been gone when she wakened that morning. When she bumped into him in the hall after breakfast, his face was pasty, his eyes red-rimmed. "I just needed to get out of the house for awhile. You know.")

"I told you I'd just needed to get away for awhile – which was technically true – "

("No, actually, I don't know," she'd said. "Do we need to talk?")

"You asked if there was something we needed to talk about. My need to tell you welled up and the Source rose up to crush it, and I felt like I was splitting in two – "

("Phoebe, I – " And then he'd put both hands to his face, looking like he might be sick, and swore. And said he had a migraine, and bolted from the house. Oh my God, she thought, he's sick. That's why he was in the bathroom. Ingesting the Hollow was too much for his mortal body, and he doesn't want the Charmed Ones to witness his weakness -- )

"I just barely got out the words. 'The Source is still in me.' And then he took over, and I tried to laugh it off as a bad joke, but you knew it was true. And then things got – complicated. But you three came up with the right spell and the right plan, and freed me."

Phoebe turned sharply from him, her hand over her mouth.

"Phoebe?"

"That's it?" She whispered it, but it sounded somehow like a scream. "Two seconds' additional strength on your part? Two seconds? Six words? And you're – and he's – "

He looked back into the garage, giving her a moment of privacy. Then he said, still looking away, "You love him very much."

"I did. It's just masochism to keep loving someone who keeps causing you pain. Even if you understand him to the marrow of his bones." She wiped a lone tear from her face. "I just – I wish – "

His hand shot out and he seized her arm as though her words would strike someone dead. "Don't. Don't wish it."

"Why?"

Silence.

"Why? What happened?"

"A few days after the exorcism, you and – my Phoebe and Paige, were alone in the Manor. The Seer attacked, with a couple of other demons. Paige was still new to orbing – new to the craft. She was just a couple of seconds too slow, and Phoebe was taken.

"We launched an immediate search, of course. Then we started getting images. In windows, in mirrors. Not just at the Manor, everywhere. Of you being tortured. Mentally, emotionally, physically. Using magic, using psychology, using brute force." A spasm crossed Cole's face. "She used her helpers for that last. We would hear your screams. No one else could see the images or hear – it – just your sisters and Leo. And me. And then we got a ransom demand: She would give you back to us, if I gave up my human soul."

"Dear God."

"I never understood why she did that." He looked at her. "I thought it was just spite. But now, knowing what you say happened here, I wonder if our Seer had had the same plan. For me, as the Source, to sire a powerful demonic infant, which she could carry. When you got rid of the Source, she might have figured that if I gave up my soul and went totally demonic, it would be the next best thing. But in that case, you'd think that any male upper-level demon could act – "

"No. You were always unique, Cole. If she had a vision of you as the father, not just any demon would do."

"Well. We were insane, of course. Tried everything. She had you well cloaked. And we kept getting the images. After the third day I'd have done it, I'd have given the Seer anything she wanted. Piper talked me out of it. She said that when we got you back – " he smiled, a little – "She never said if. When we got you back, you would need my love, all the help you could get. And if you knew that I was out there, totally demonic, probably planning to kill you all, you wouldn't be able to bear it.

"On the ninth day we finally, finally found you and raided. At the last moment it came down to a choice between recovering you or getting the Seer, and of course we chose recovering you. Leo, he was still a whitelighter then, healed the physical injuries. But you've – "

He looked down at her as if only now remembering that this was not the same woman.

"Phoebe's never been the same. She lives in her own world, seeing things we don't see. Pharmaceuticals keep her from screaming all night. But the main injuries to the psyche are magical, and we've tried everything." He shook his head. "No. Not everything. There has to be something else, and we'll find it. That's what Paige keeps saying. You – you practically wouldn't recognize our Paige. She's lived with such guilt for three years. Piper and Leo never had children, of course. Too much else to be responsible for."

A little sound jolted out of Phoebe's throat.

"There's still the Power of Three." He seemed to want to reassure her. "She'll say a spell with Piper and Paige. Sometimes they have to tell her it's a nursery rhyme, or something. Sometimes Paige has to tell her, 'I'm Prue in disguise.' She almost always recognizes Piper. But I'm the only one she always knows. I don't know why. I'm the only one who can calm her for any length of time, make her feel safe."

Phoebe nodded. "When you were – when he was at his best, I never felt safer than when I was in bed with him."

"Well," he said again. "That part of the relationship – Phoebe can hardly bear to be touched, you know. I stay in the same room with her, because it helps her sleep, but in separate beds. She tries. She'll ask me to put my arms around her, but after a couple of minutes she starts shaking and I know she's seeing demons in the wall again."

His arm straight out against the door jamb, he dropped his head. "I miss you, Phoebe. God, I miss you."

After a moment, "I miss you, too."

Cole raised his head, brought his gaze back to the garage window. "I've got to get back there. There's got to be a way to make this jerk talk."

"Maybe we – Hey! Truth spell!"

"That's it! Unless he's got an amulet – Ssh."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of motion in the garage, and gave his full attention to the crevice in the Venetian blinds.

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Paige Matthews felt dumb. She had felt sort of dumb ransacking the chaotic storerooms of Magic School with Leo for a silver-bladed athame. She had felt dumb and grossed-out wiping the athame with Cole's bloody shirt. And she felt really dumb now scrying with the athame instead of a crystal point, dangling it over the map by a thread tied to its handle like a freaking sword of Damocles.

But what made her feel dumbest was repeating over and over, "Find the blade that drew this blood. Find the blade that drew this blood."

The stupid thing wouldn't move. She twirled it, but every time she stopped it hung from the thread as heavily as, well, a knife hanging from a thread. Leo had gone downstairs to see if he could help Piper with the intra-dimensional spell. Just say no, Piper. "Find the blade that drew this blood. Find the blade that drew this blood."

She was just considering some "Court Jester"-like variations ("Blind the dade that brew this flood!"), when the athame moved. It didn't make the crystal's usual polite mapward point, though. It swung in an arc and pointed at Paige's heart.

Apparently this wasn't personal, though. In a moment it had swung again, defying gravitational law, pointed to the opposite wall. Then it began jerking in all different directions, almost pulling the thread from her hands. She fought it like a cowgirl trying to rein in a runaway horse. "Whoa! Hey! I'm the witch here, you're the tool! You tell me what I want to know! Find the blade that drew this blood!"

It leaped up beside an attic rafter, yanking the thread from her hands completely, and hovered overhead, point down. With a squawk, Paige leaped away, and the athame plunged down fast, burying its point in the table and standing upright, piercing the map at San Leandro.

Leo stuck his head in the door. "Anything?" he asked brightly.

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Cole's jaw was clenched as he looked through the garage window, and every line in his body spelled tension.

"The Seer?" Phoebe whispered.

"Phoebe, get on the phone, call your sisters. I'll keep Stone from talking until they orb here."

"How about I call my sisters and then we both keep Stone from talking?"

"You are not going in there with me."

"You are not going in there alone."

"What a debate," said a quiet voice behind them. "Can we join in?"

They both spun to see Piper and Paige. Phoebe grinned. "I wish you guys' timing could be a little better."

"Scrying for the Seer finally paid off," Paige said. She was holding a box with both hands, and Cole, peering into it, nodded approvingly.

"Bottom line, Stone knows something about dimensional portals," Phoebe said. "He won't tell us, but the Seer could almost certainly bribe him. So we've got to get him away from the Seer and make sure he doesn't get killed before we hit him with a truth spell."

"Then I'd better not freeze him," Piper said. "He couldn't dodge, and this is going to get lively." She pulled an athame out of the box Paige held and handed it to Phoebe. "I'll blow the door. Cole, you go in first with a fireball. Paige and I will follow with the box. Phoebe, you protect Stone. Everyone ready?"

Cole conjured a fireball, and Piper blew the door.