A/N: Thanks for the reviews so far, and Joleca thanks to you of course as well for the great ideas you're feeding me. Hope you enjoy this one!
"Piper, stop fidgeting." Whispered Leo as his wife shifted in her seat angrily, ignoring the stares of the other passengers.
"No, Leo. I will not stop fidgeting, in fact I'm just getting started fidgeting." She hissed back, turning her head to face him so quickly that her straight brown hair whipped Leo in the face.
"Ow…Piper." He whined, holding a hand over his eye.
"We better land in Seattle soon…ooh, I'm going to tear Phoebe a new one…and you don't even want to know what I'm planning to do to Cole…" she growled more to herself than her red-eyed husband beside her.
"Piper, I think you should take a deep breath and relax honey." Leo tried, his left eye beginning to water.
"Well, how about this Leo. When you have a sister who runs off to Seattle in order to be with her demonic ex-husband, you can relax!"
"Piper, please keep your voice down!"
Piper finally relaxed and edged herself down into her seat, glowering at the back of the seat in front of her.
"See, don't you feel better?" Leo asked in the lightest tone possible.
"No." she snarled.
"Phoebe, what are you doing here?" Cole asked, a hint of a shocked smile appearing on his handsome face despite the fact that his stomach was churning.
"Apparently I was sent by the precinct, Officer Ben Halliwell." She retorted, brushing past Cole and into his bachelor looking apartment.
Cole shut the door and clasped his hands behind his back as he watched Phoebe make herself comfortable on his couch. He cocked his head to the side, a smirk on his pale face. He ran a hand through his damp hair and shook his head slowly as he made his way over towards the couch.
"So why Ben Halliwell?" she asked amused, after a moment of awkward silence.
"Well I chose Benjamin for my father, the good man I want to be and Halliwell for the woman who saved me…the woman I want to spend every waking moment with."
"Cole…" she sighed quietly.
"What? It's true." He offered, gesturing with his right hand.
"I can't do this again…"
"Then why are you here?"
"To tell you what's wrong with you."
"What's wrong with me? I'm a demon, that's what's wrong." Cole set his jaw and glared at Phoebe, the dark circles under his eyes pronouncing themselves as his eyes became bright with anger.
"What's more, you knew I was a demon then, you know I'm a demon now…so what's changed?"
"Well for starters, you tried to kill us." She pointed out, standing up.
"You're going in damn circles, Phoebe. I've tried to kill you numerous times, but I never could. So really, what has changed?"
"You changed."
"Of course I changed! We all changed, but why? For what?"
"Love."
"I'm beginning to lose faith in love with each passing second…"
"Look, Cole I didn't come here to fight. I came here to tell you what Paige and I found out. You're sick because your body is rejecting the powers you gained in the Wasteland, and if you obtained more than we thought, you could possibly die from the regression. We also believe that your powers that you had as Belthazor are slowing down, maybe even coming to a halt as your body tries to reject the other powers. That may be why the self-healing didn't kick in so well."
Cole scratched his head and sat on the couch, eyeing Phoebe as she towered over him. He let out a small laugh and said, "Wow."
"Yeah, wow." She huffed.
"Well," Cole slowly picked himself off the couch to face Phoebe, "Thanks. I guess you should be going then."
"Excuse me? I didn't come all the way out here just to tell you you're probably going to die."
Cole smirked and furrowed his eyebrows, "Really? That's exactly what it seems you came out here for. If there's another reason please, enlighten me."
Phoebe strode across the room quickly, halting directly in front of Cole who's breath immediately hitched in his throat as he gazed down at the brown-eyed beauty.
"I came here for this," she whispered, placing both of her hands on each side of Cole's face and standing on the tips of her toes in order to place a tender kiss on his pink lips. She pulled away with a frown, placing a hand on his forehead, "You're burning up."
Cole scoffed, "Well there may be more than one reason for that," as he snaked his arms around her slim waist and pulled her petite frame closer to his muscular body.
"Cole, you're really ill," she whispered, trying to pull away from him halfheartedly as he began to nuzzle her neck.
"Well, then I guess I better spend my last few days with you, huh?" he joked, also halfheartedly, resting his hot forehead against her cool one.
"You can spend them with me alright, but we're making sure that those last few days are not for another hundred some years." She returned, pulling away and tugging Cole towards the couch until she stopped and looked around perplexed, "Don't you have a bed?"
Cole wrapped his arms around her once more, pressing his abdomen against her back, as he shook his head no. Phoebe sighed, turning around to lay a hand on Cole's chest.
"You need to rest, right now." She murmured, "I'm not kidding."
Cole heaved a noticeable sigh and relaxed underneath her touch, a smile growing on his face as squeezed his eyes shut and opened them quickly. He searched her face with his vivid eyes as she did the same.
"You're exhausted, let's get you in," she cleared her throat and motioned towards the couch, "Bed."
Cole laughed and led her over to the couch, allowing her to take charge and place him underneath the thin sheet. He lay on his side and started to say something, pausing as he mulled it over and shook his head.
"I love you, Cole, damn it all I love you." She whispered, kissing Cole on his cheek as he fell into a fitful, deep slumber on the couch.
"Okay, here we are in Seattle, where to now?" Piper asked, looking around at the buildings surrounding her and Leo.
"I can sense for her?" he offered, when he suddenly gulped after Piper grabbed the neck of his sweater, "What?"
"We could have orbed here!" she hissed loudly, trying her best to be discreet.
"I was thinking that too, but it's not really an emergency so it's best that we di-" Piper tightened her hold on Leo's shirt, "I guess I can make an exception."
"That's what I thought, let's find a secluded area and get my sister back!"
Leo and Piper traveled along tell they found an alley, looking around in order to avoid witnesses; Leo orbed Piper and himself out of the alley and in front of an apartment door. Piper squared her shoulders and pounded her fists on the door.
"Piper, we don't want to make a racket." Leo interjected.
"We don't, I do." She growled, pounding harder.
Phoebe opened the door and uttered a small, "Oh."
"Oh, yeah oh!"
"Piper, please keep it down, Cole is finally sleeping." Phoebe whispered.
"I could give a-"
"Come in here!" Phoebe pulled Leo and Piper into the small apartment room by their shirts.
Cole, barely visible on the couch underneath the dark sheet, shifted in his sleep, emitting a small whine. Piper scowled and pointed at him accusingly, "Wake him up, now."
"No! He's dying, Piper, cut him some slack. Actually I'm glad you're here. We need to get rid of Cole's extra powers in order to save him."
"Wait, he's dying, how?" Leo asked, the medical doctor in him kicking in.
Phoebe sighed and retold her story to the two. Piper visibly calmed down and shook her head slowly.
"So, you want to save him after all that's he done?"
"Yes, I love him Piper."
"Fine, alright…I don't want to but I will help."
"Me too." Leo joined in.
"Thank you so much! Now I'm not sure we go about dealing with this…I mean right now he's ill, with flu like symptoms but I have a feeling that's nothing compared to what he will be feeling soon."
"So, write a spell and I'll make a potion…we can strip his powers again."
"Is it really that simple?" asked Leo, eyebrows raised.
"Doubt it." Phoebe muttered, turning her back against her family to watch Cole continue his restless sleep.
A yellow-toothed Watcher demon leered over at a young, seemingly normal child as the child of at least eight years of age strolled across the park casually like an adult. The demon laughed aloud, he enjoyed watching this child trying to blend in with the humans when he knew the truth; this child was no regular child.
The child paused at a sandbox, watching the other children play happily with each other before they realized that he was watching them with a menacing glint in his piercing blue eyes. The leader of the small group stood and eyed the small boy up and down with a smirk.
"Take a picture, it lasts longer." He stated, grinning when the other children laughed.
The young dark haired boy cocked his head to the side and casually said, "You're ugly mug would break my lens."
A series of "Oos" broke out before the leader stepped out of the sandbox and muttered, "What'd you say to me pipsqueak?"
"I didn't st-stutter did I, spoke to quickly for your pea-sized b-brain? Maybe you ought a pick your ears and give your nose a rest."
The others laughed again, causing the leader to redden in anger. The larger boy swung at the small child, falling forward on his face when the boy suddenly shimmered out. The dark-haired boy emerged behind the large boy and quickly threw a fireball at his back, grinning when the leader went up in flames.
The other children watched wide-eyed and open-mouthed in shock. The young boy turned towards them with his right hand in his pocket nonchalantly.
"When you speak of this day, don't call me a monster or the boogeyman. Call me Belthazor." He laughed and shimmered out.
"Watching me again, Watcher demon?" Belthazor demanded, having shimmered behind the large yellow-toothed demon.
"Your mother and Raynor wanted to make sure you completed your task, young Belthazor. No need to get testy."
"Why shouldn't I? I'm half-human after all, they do not trust my abilities."
"Sir, please, I'm just a Watcher demon." The demon wanted to say, but the only sound emitted from his burning body was a howl of agony as the young Belthazor watched him with an amused smirk, hand raised in his direction, the source of the deathly fireball that consumed the Watcher demon.
Cole sat up quickly, nearly falling off his couch in the process. He shook his head and thought aloud, "Why would I dream that?"
"Dream what?" Piper asked as she stepped from the shadows.
"Piper, what are you doing here? Where's Phoebe?" Cole asked alarmed, scanning his dark apartment for his love.
"She and Leo went to get some food, dream what?"
"It was nothing…just my first kill many,many, many years ago." He muttered.
"Your first kill? You dreamt about you first kill?" she asked, crossing her arms against her chest.
"Yes, it was my first mission. I wasn't supposed to start my first mission till age ten like all the other demons. However I was half-demon, so they thought me useless and weak…made me prove myself repeatedly way before the age of ten." he explained to the mildly interested Piper.
Piper made an "Hmmm" sound as she sat on the floor. Cole scratched his head and yawned, "I'm exhausted…and I feel like shit…"
"Yeah, well that's what you get."
"Thanks…" he muttered.
"Of course." She gave him a toothy smile as he sighed and threw himself back onto the couch.
TBC...
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