Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Charmed. I wish I did, but I don't.

A/n: This is my first attempt at a Coop point of view. I'm not sure how I feel about it; Coop's odd for me to write.

Thanks so much for the reviews! You guys are amazing!

Katie

Coming Home

"You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right."

-Maya Angelou

Three: Lost

"This finally feels like a real Thanksgiving," said Phoebe. The night was chilled, and Phoebe stamped her foot against the pavement, waiting for Coop to get out of the car. Her heel made a satisfying click against the pavement.

"Why wouldn't it feel like a real Thanksgiving?" asked Coop as he stepped out.

"I don't know," said Phoebe. "When we were little it was always just us and Grams. And Grams didn't really like Thanksgiving. I'm not sure why."

"And then it was just you and your sisters," supplied Coop knowingly. He slammed the car door and walked around to Phoebe, taking her gloved hand. They began to head towards the house.

"Right," said Phoebe. "I guess I just grew up hearing all my friends talking about seeing their cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents, and it was always just our little family. It just seemed like dinner every other night. But now it feels like the whole family is finally together. It feels right, you know?"

"Sure," said Coop. He didn't really. He understood, the way anyone could, but that wasn't the same as knowing. In all honestly, this was his first Thanksgiving, and he had only been part of a family for three months now. He was still getting used to this whole new world.

Phoebe gave him an odd little smile he couldn't decipher and then reached out to open the door. Before she could, Coop put a hand on her shoulder and turned her attention towards him. "I love you," he said.

"I love you too," said Phoebe. Then she stood on her toes to give him a quick peck on the lips. The next thing he knew, the door was open and he and Phoebe were inside.

"Piper!" called Phoebe, unbuttoning her coat. Coop followed her lead, and hung up both their coats on the pegs on the wall near the door. Then he followed his wife into the living room, where Henry was sitting on the floor playing with Wyatt.

"Hey," he said as they came into the room.

"Hey," said Phoebe, crossing the room and crouching down next to Wyatt. "Where is everyone?"

"Paige is in the kitchen supposedly helping Piper," said Henry with a smirk. "Leo went to change Chris."

Phoebe stood and turned to face Coop. "I'm going to go see what my sisters are up to," she said, planting a swift kiss on Coop.

Part of Coop wanted to follow Phoebe, but he didn't think she would appreciate his presence, so he hung back. He didn't know Henry very well, though, so he felt somewhat awkward. If he wanted to, of course, he could have discussed Henry's love life. Somehow he didn't think Henry would appreciate that, though. Especially if he brought up one Jessica Hopkins.

"So," said Henry, "how's it going?"

"It's going good," said Coop. "How are you?"

"Can't complain. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm about to eat the best Thanksgiving meal of my life and the only decent food I've had in two weeks," said Henry. He smiled; Henry always seemed to be smiling.

"I take it you guys don't cook," said Coop.

Henry laughed. "Absolutely not. We're both terrible. We try, but we don't often succeed."

Coop smiled, though he was only politely amused, and said, "So, Christmas in Virginia."

"Never been," said Leo, coming back into the room. He set Chris on the floor and the toddler immediately took off running towards his brother. "Isn't that strange? Sixty-plus years of being a Whitelighter and I've never had a charge in Virginia."

"Paige promised snow," said Coop, trying to hide some of the excitement in his voice. Snow was romantic and beautiful, two things Coop entirely understood. It was this, more than anything, to which he was looking forward.

"Well, hopefully," said Henry. "I mean, Paige can't control the weather or anything." Just then, Paige came into the living room, stopping behind Henry and tussling his hair.

"Did I hear my name?" she asked.

"Just saying that you can't control the weather," said Henry, turning his head to look up at her. "You can't, right?"

"I couldn't the last time I checked."

"Too bad," said Henry. "That would be a cool power."

Paige shook her head as though exasperated, but her eyes shone and Coop knew she was anything but. "Dinner's ready," she said. "And you better like it. We did a lot of work."

"You mean Piper did a lot of work," said Henry, getting to his feet.

"I supervised," said Paige. Leo laughed.

Coop was quiet during dinner. The girls were speaking with an ease Coop found comforting. Love between siblings was a unique and interesting phenomenon that he didn't have as much firsthand experience with. In all, the home was so warm and full of love right then that Coop could have burst from it. How lucky was he?

And it was luck, after all. Coop wasn't sure why he had been chosen to love Phoebe. In all honesty, it could have been any cupid. All cupids were susceptible to love and they all loved the humans they helped. Any one could have chosen to marry. But they had asked Coop. Did he resemble Phoebe's type? Was that the reason? Or perhaps it was because he was one of the older cupids and more experienced? He honestly didn't know, particularly because Phoebe had fallen for her cupid before. Why not that cupid?

The entire idea had been the Elders. For reasons not entirely clear to Coop, they thought that the Charmed Ones should be given some sort of reward. Why that reward should be in the form of a love match, Coop had no idea. He also wasn't sure why giving Phoebe a lover was the equivalent of rewarding all of the Charmed Ones. But who was he to question authority?

Phoebe, of course, knew none of this and Coop had no particular notion to tell her. He was more aware of Phoebe's thoughts on love more than any of her other thoughts; she wouldn't find this random love match romantic. The only thing he had told her was that he might not stay a cupid forever.

He had been warned that eventually he would probably stop being a cupid. There were previous cupids who had married humans and every one had become prone to human follies; the painful side of love. A cupid simply couldn't remain forever in love with love once he had spent too much time among humans and seen too much. Somehow, even though Coop had been told this would happen, he couldn't quite imagine it. The entire idea seemed to be some hazy future that he would never actually reach.

"So how much of your family is going to be in Virginia?" asked Leo. A slight flicker of his eyes to Piper indicated that he was really asking on her behalf.

"My grammy," said Paige. "Obviously. My two uncles and their wives. And us. None of my cousins can make it, unfortunately."

"Cousins," said Phoebe with a grin. "How exotic."

"You don't have any?" asked Coop.

Phoebe glanced at Piper with the question in her expression. "Do we?" she asked. "Dad had siblings."

Piper shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "I guess we might. But we've never met them. I don't think we ever even met Dad's parents."

The words, so casually spoken, caused Coop's stomach to knot. The idea of lost relatives, of lost love, caused an ache. Glimpsing around the table, Coop was surprised to see both Henry and Leo also seemed lost in thought over Piper's words. But then, neither of them had family either, other than the ones they were building now. Perhaps they were thinking of what they had lost.

Lost. The most desolate word Coop knew. And all three of the men at the table were thinking it now.

A moment later, though, both Henry and Leo had rejoined the conversation and the common link was gone.