Epilogue

One Year Later

The fingers brushing through his hair woke him from his exhausted sleep and Cole quickly opened his eyes to find Phoebe gazing sleepily back at him.

He brought her hand from his hair to his lips and kissed her fingertips soundly. "You scared me."

"Scared me too," she weakly teased. But the tears came to her eyes quicker than the smile to her lips, "Are they…"

He immediately moved from the chair next to her bed and sat on its edge and smiled with assurance, "They're fine, Phoebe, they're small and pink and perfect."

Her memories were jumbled up in a haze of pain and drugs, "There was so much blood."

"Minor complication," was all he replied.

"Hysterectomy?" she worried as the tears fell.

"Honey, no," he gently wiped away her tears, "they stopped the hemorrhaging after the C-section. They didn't have to do anything."

"I can get pregnant again?"

"Let's get these two home first," he teased, kissing her forehead, "before we start planning on the next one."

She closed her eyes a moment before gazing back at him, "They're really okay?"

"According to the three doctors, four nurses, two Whitelighters, and one daddy," he grinned, "they are."

"Daddy…" she smiled. "I like the sound of that."

"I love you," he told her in a voice that suddenly choked. He'd nearly lost all three of his girls. "I love you all so much."

She raised her hand to caress his face but didn't have the energy to keep it there and he caught it as it fell back to her side. "I love you, Cole. And I thank God every day that you came back into my life."

He leaned forward and rested his cheek against hers, "Thank you for my family."

They were quiet for a while before Cole sat up. "I'm going to check on them. Close your eyes and get some rest."

"My sisters here?"

"They were this morning and all afternoon," he informed her. "Henry and I finally ganged up on them and convinced them to go home."

"Do you know if…"

Cole brushed the back of his hand along her cheek and nodded, "Paige reached her this afternoon. She's on the way."

"It's been hard for her, this past year."

"I know," he acknowledged. "But she needed the time to herself. She needed to recover and find herself again."

"Like us…"

"We didn't need a year," he smiled. "We didn't even need a month."

"Do you think she'll accept?" She could barely keep her eyes open anymore.

Cole kissed her again, "She's missing her family and wants to reconnect with you. I think she'll be thrilled to be Godmother to our two little demons."

It hurt to laugh and she groaned instead, "Kiss them for me."

"When you wake up, I'll take you to them and you can kiss them yourself," he promised. "Now go to sleep."

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Cole reached one hand down into each bassinet and watched with joy as one of each of his daughter's tiny hands wrapped around one of his fingers. "Hey there, beautiful ladies, I told you Mommy would be fine. She's taking a nap now but she'll be by later to see you. She loves you both so much. Now, I'm going back to her so I want you to take care of each other until we come back." He placed a light kiss on each fuzzy head of dark brown hair, "That's your job now, to watch out for and protect each other. You're sisters and no bond is stronger than that."

"Almost no bond…"

Cole frowned in annoyance when he turned to find his wife sitting behind him in a wheelchair. "I just left you asleep."

"Couldn't," she shrugged, unable to stifle a yawn. "Needed to see my baby girls."

As annoyed as he was, he wasn't about to let her stand and before she could say another word, he bent down and scooped her up into his arms.

"Oh God," she whispered, "they're so tiny." Phoebe reached down with shaky fingers to lightly stroke her daughters' fine hair. "They're really okay?"

He kissed her and promised, "Ready to go home in another day or two."

She suddenly squirmed in his arms and tried to snuggle closer to him.

"Hey, what's wrong? The twins are fine, Phoebe, I promise."

"I'm just so scared for them, Cole. What if one day it's them against some other set of sisters?"

He kissed her again and carefully sat down in the wheelchair with Phoebe in his lap. She leaned forward to gaze at their daughters through the clear bassinets. He smoothed her hair behind her shoulders and finally answered, "Then they'll deal with it the same way you did, with love and hope."

"Sisters to the end," she whispered before she leaned back against her husband. "I love you, Cole."

"No more than I love you, babe," he murmured, his lips buried in her hair, "no more than I love you…"

The End