Charmed - Parallel Intersections (8/10)
Title: Parallel Intersections
Fandom: Charmed
Disclaimer: They belong to Constance Burge, Brad Kern and the WB
Rating: PG-13
Original Publication: FF.net, April 2004 - June 2004
Summary: In which the time-space continuum is heavily abused and second chances are found.
Previous Parts:
Prologue
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
PART SEVEN
A day of grief lasts longer than a month of joy.
-Chinese proverb
They stayed up late talking. Paige knew this because she’d heard their murmurs even after she’d gone to bed. Though it’d taken an earthquake to wake her up the night before, it was her own insomnia that had her watching the sunrise over a burning city this morning.
The two lovebirds had fallen asleep on the couch, Cole on his back, Abelone sprawled on top of him, dried tear tracks still evident on her face. Whatever they’d spoken about the night before seemed to have resulted in some sort of understanding between them if the way Cole held her hand even in sleep was any indication.
“Coffee?” Gertrude’s soft voice drew her from her thoughts. She accepted the offered cup as the other witch settled herself on the opposite side of the window seat. She looked drawn. “The fire’s grown worse, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Although the sun had managed to shed some light below, black smoke hung heavy in the sky. “It’ll be like this for a couple days.”
“My city won’t be the same, will it?”
“No.”
Gertrude sighed. Paige didn’t think of her as particularly old, but her current demeanor aged her. “Odd, but I think I’ll miss it. Isn’t that a strange thing?”
“I guess, but I get it.”
“I’m getting too old to tolerate it.” She smiled at Paige’s disbelieving snort. “I know what you think but eventually it’s true for all of us. I can’t bear to watch a city I love change so utterly. Leaving is better, I think. Let the young people come and make a place for themselves.”
“If it makes you feel any better, they will. I grew up here and it’s a pretty great place to be.”
“That’s a small comfort then.”
The view of ruin outside was growing painful to watch and so Paige found her attention drifting back to the subject of her earlier musings. Cole remained asleep under her glare though Gertrude noticed where her focus lay. “Perhaps I’m not the only one to dislike change.”
“You never give up, do you?” Paige shook her head. “I’m never going to like him. I can’t. Not after seeing what he’s done to the people I care about.”
“Even if the man you speak of doesn’t exist yet?”
“He will eventually. I’ll handle him now because I have to but don’t ever think it’s because I want to.”
“And yet you seem quite familiar with him regardless. Was there never a time when you found common ground?”
She’d screwed up big time. Hurt her sisters because she hadn’t listened to them. Hurt Cole because he’d trusted her to protect them from himself. Instead she’d just made the whole situation worse, as Phoebe continued to not-so-subtly remind her.
She didn’t expect him to defend her. “Shouldn't you guys give Paige a break? She had good intentions, that's gotta count for something.”
She blinked. “Thank you. I think.”
He wasn’t just talking about her and they both knew it, but he gave her a small encouraging smile anyway, a wry reminder that once upon a time, she’d found him a little attractive...
“No,” she said because little white lies were always easier than complicated truths. “And we never will.”
They finished the rest of their coffee in silence.
***
The trail from yesterday had long since grown cold and Paige was at a loss as to where a middle-aged man who’d recently become homeless might go in 1906.
It was Gertrude who suggested the parks. “Surely the national guard has mobilized by now. Won’t they organize camps for the displaced?”
Paige nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. I know the Presidio definitely had a whole bunch of tents set up.”
Cole frowned. “Set up when?”
Paige sighed. It wasn’t worth explaining the whole Back to the Future mix-up at the moment. “Never mind.”
“I-I’m not sure he’d even be there,” Abelone said. She added quietly, “They might not let him.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s Chinese,” Cole answered, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. Which, Paige, supposed, it just might be in this time.
Paige decided this called for a deep and profound statement. “Racism sucks.”
That just got her confused looks all around. Good. Now maybe they’d know how she felt.
“Is there anywhere else he might be?” Gertrude asked Abelone gently. “Any friends? Family?”
“All his friends live in Chinatown. I’m his only family.”
“But the camps will have medical tents.” Cole drew her to him, let her rest her head on his shoulder. “If he’s injured, they couldn’t turn him away. He’s not a stupid man. He’d know that the Presidio or Fort Mason are the best places to go.”
“And I could probably orb there without a problem. It’s our best bet, really,” Paige said.
No one mentioned the possibility of Ru being injured beyond the ability to go anywhere. No one dared.
Gertrude demurred from accompanying them and so it was a trio that arrived in a grove of trees off the main refugee site, hidden from curious eyes. They approached the neat rows of white tents already buzzing with activity as soldiers intermingled with the homeless, the injured and uniformed Red Cross.
It was a needle in a haystack.
That didn’t deter Abelone. She approached every vaguely official-looking person to cross their path, inquiring as the whereabouts of a Chinese man called Ru Ling who might be looking for his daughter. Most shook their head in response. Some simply looked harried. Others made rude comments about her heritage. Abelone didn’t react in any way other to thank them for their time and move on.
Paige, on other hand, muttered some choice spells at the more offensive ones. Nothing terrible and nothing that she believed would violate the premise of personal gain - it was, after all, in passive defense of Abelone - but they probably wouldn’t be sleeping comfortably for a few days.
The situation didn’t improve as the day wore on. They were directed to several areas segregated specifically for Chinese refugees but upon their arrival often found nothing at all or new camps set up for the rest of the population, soldiers there just directing them somewhere else. Frustration in all three of them continued to climb.
Paige was very close to calling a halt to that day’s hunt when in one of the far camps, someone called Abelone’s name. Neither Paige nor Cole heard the first time, stopping only because Abelone did. The call came again, then a third time. On alert now, they scanned the crowd around them, eyes out for a familiar face. Abelone finally gave a cry.
“Ba! Papa!”
She took off at a run for the Red Cross tent, nearly tripping over the hem of her dress as she collapsed next to where her father sat on a small, worn cot. Ru held her as she lapsed into Chinese, lined face breaking into a wan, relieved smile. It left Cole and Paige standing somewhat awkwardly off to the side.
“Do you understand any of that?” Paige said, head tilted toward the reunited pair.
Cole frowned. “A little. It’s too quick for me to catch much. Why?”
“Just wondering if you were going to be of any use at all today.”
Cole glowered but refrained from rising to the bait. By this point, Abelone and Ru were engaged in a rapid-fire discussion that had Ru sending sharp glances toward Paige and Cole every once in a while. He eventually turned to address them directly. “Mr. Turner.”
“Ah, yes, sir.” He appeared at a loss as to what to call the older man.
“You have been acting as a gentleman, I trust.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, good. And Miss Matthews, my daughter has been telling me most interesting things about you.”
“Um, what sort of things?”
Ru smiled. “Good ones.”
“Thanks. I think.”
Ru directed another question at Abelone who shook her head at it. He said something else and tried to get up, agitating her further.
“What’s wrong?” Cole asked.
“He wants to get up and go back to his shop, but he can’t. Papa, you can’t,” she said back at Ru, gesturing toward the bandage on his forehead. “You’re hurt.”
“But the safe-”
“What safe?” Paige said.
“The one at his shop. It has the week’s profits in it and bonds from the bank.”
“I always repay my debts. And Qiu needs his pay.”
“Papa, no. He wouldn’t expect it of you.” Ru tried to rise again only to be pushed back down. They exchanged a more heated conversation in Chinese before Abelone sighed.
“I’ll go but Papa, you must stay here!”
“Go? Lon - Abelone, you’re not serious!”
“What choice do I have? We-we have so little left,” she finished tearfully. “If we can save something, anything...”
“For all you know, the shop is burnt to the ground by this point.”
“I hate to say it, but he’s got a point,” Paige said. “It’s pretty risky.”
“I don’t plan on staying any longer than necessary. But I have to at least try. It’s - it’s important.”
Cole stared at her in disbelief before rubbing a hand over his face and growling in frustration. “Fine. I’ll go with you.”
It was Paige’s turn to stare. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Better I go with her than leave her on her own.”
Paige protested again but Abelone just smiled. “It’ll be fine, you’ll see.”
“Crazy people. I am surrounded by crazy people,” the Charmed One muttered.
“No one asked you to stay,” Cole said.
She glared. “Like I would trust you by yourself.”
Abelone stopped just short of rolling her eyes at them. “Paige, you don’t have to come. Cole and I can manage.”
“You sure?”
“I can take care of her,” Cole gritted out.
“You couldn’t take care of a pet rock.”
Ru frowned. “What is this thing, a ‘pet rock’?”
“Abelone-”
“Paige, please, I need you to stay with my father. You can help more here.” She waved hands in imitation of Paige from last night.
Paige took the hint. “Okay, okay. But he tries anything - and I mean, anything - you tell me so I can kick his ass.”
“Excuse me?”
“I will.” Before Cole could say anything further, Abelone grabbed his hand and started to weave back toward the south Presidio entrance. “We’ll be back soon.”
Paige and Ru watched them disappear back into the crowds. Ru turned to Paige. “You know, you do not look very much like a shaman woman.”
Paige sighed.
***
Cole hovered anxiously outside the modest tailor’s shop that more or less still stood miraculously intact. He’d explained some of his abilities to Lonnie - Abelone, he reminded himself, she preferred Abelone - the previous evening, although not how he had come by them. He had long believed in the advantages of practicality. In light of Paige and Gertrude’s revelations, there seemed to be no reason to hide his powers anymore, especially if they could come in useful as the shimmer over here had so amply proved. Abelone’s delighted grin at the demonstration was merely a convenient benefit.
He shifted his weight and glowered at the entryway. Another damn talisman had been posted there, preventing his entrance and forcing him to create some excuse about standing guard while a bewildered Abelone entered the shop alone. He might be ready to admit that he knew about and used magic but he wasn’t even close to discussing his demonhood, threats from Matthews aside.
Bloody hell, how long did it take to open a safe anyway? The fire had driven most of the remaining residents to the refugee camps, leaving behind an eerily quiet city that, though he would never admit aloud, left him nervous. He silently willed Abelone to hurry.
A commotion up the street drew his attention. A group of men had turned the corner of the block and now yelled at each other in angry Chinese. As they began to run up the street, he could see they carried full valises and bore red kanji on the sleeves of their high-collared shirts. Cole read even less Chinese than he spoke but he recognized the significance of the character.
A tong, one of the brutal street gangs that roved through Chinatown. It appeared they’d seized the opportunity to loot some of the now abandoned shops, although their actions hadn’t gone unnoticed. A second group of men in police blue followed. Upon spying their pursuers, one of the gang members paused briefly to turn and fire a revolver at the officers, causing them at first to scatter, then draw their own weapons.
A short, ugly firefight followed, forcing Cole to the ground just in time to avoid a stray bullet. He heard a shatter and then a rain of glass fell on his back and head. More yelling, a few more shots, then pounding on the pavement as the chase continued.
When it appeared that the majority of the action had moved up the street, he raised his head.
Abelone stood in the doorway, staring straight ahead.
“Abelone, you should get back.”
Her head turned with strange, sluggish motion. She moved her lips but no sound came out.
Then she collapsed.
He scrambled over to her, turning her face up. At first he couldn’t understand her sudden faint. Nothing was wrong with her except a small red stain on the front of her blouse.
And then the stain started to grow.
Blood. Too much. More on her back, soaking through to his hand, ruining her shirtwaist. Oh, she’d hate that, she always took such pride in keeping her clothes neat. How could this happen? She’d been inside, out of the way. She’d…
His eyes drifted to the shattered window. They followed the men fleeing along the ruined road.
Something in Cole Turner broke.
Bones shifted and cracked under sinew that stretched across rippling skin. Teeth lengthened into fine points. Blue eyes flooded beetle black. The world turned red.
And Belthazor roared.
***
Paige paced. Abalone and Cole had been gone longer than expected and since she had little to do except sit around and wait, she paced. Because that’s what a person did when they felt useless.
Ru, meanwhile, seemed content to chat with her. “Remarkable gift you have. Remarkable. My cut is almost quite healed.”
“Uh-huh.”
“When I was a boy, there was a woman in my village. She knew many strange things, like you. Her healing was not so - ah what is the word... immediate? Yes, immediate. But remarkable all the same.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She often taught the children little tricks. Not as powerful as anything she might create herself - that you must be born with - but little things. Some herbs, how to hold our prayer beads, how to protect against evil spirits. It has been years, but I have never forgotten.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in but when they did she stared at him with new eyes. His level expression remained serene.
“It was you,” she said. “You’re the one who created that talisman.”
“Yes. As I said, a little thing. I worry for my daughter. She never truly could find her place in the world. And Mr. Turner seems like a very confused boy.”
“Wait. You knew what he was?”
“That he could have a bad spirit? Yes. All men may, at some point.”
“That’s not what I-” She stopped as a rather remarkable and more than a little disquieting thought occurred to her. “Oh my God, if I hadn’t been at the apartment...”
“There is nothing that does not have its mandate,” Ru told her. He sounded melancholy. “No matter how much we might wish it otherwise.”
“MATTHEWS!”
The yell came from a male throat, raw and desperate.
“MATTHEWS! HELP!”
Cole, no doubt about it. Paige fought her way through a suddenly buzzing crowd to the edge of the Chinese encampment. When she saw what had drawn their attention, ice gripped her veins.
Cole stood at the end of the row, Abelone in his arms. Both were covered in blood. Wide blue eyes locked onto her own.
“Help,” he said hoarsely, legs buckling beneath him. Paige barely had enough time to ease Abelone to the ground before his grip loosened entirely and he fell to his knees.
“What the hell happened?” Oh God, the blood was everywhere. And Abelone. Her color was all wrong. No one should actually look grey. That was for stories and metaphors, not for real life flesh and blood people.
Cole grabbed her hands and pulled them over Abelone’s chest. “Heal her.”
“Cole, I-”
“Like before! Heal her!” His grip tightened, turning painful. Blood on his hands, now on hers. Could it all be Abelone’s? No, no, he had cuts, too and a wound on his upper arm had reduced the skin to mangled meat. She averted her eyes before her stomach could completely rebel.
“Okay, okay. Just - just give me -” She unbuttoned Abelone’s shirtwaist with trembling fingers to find the source of the problem. Not that she actually needed to see it to heal it but it helped to give her something to focus on instead of how still Abelone was and how manic Cole had become and had he done this? Was this some bizarre, insane trick of his, ha, ha, fooled you, Paige, see what really happens to anyone who dares to actually care about me?
The wound was a circular mark on the chest no bigger in circumference then in her index finger. Stick it in there and stop the blood from flowing, a dam held back by sheer force of will.
Guns weren’t Cole’s style.
And the skin was so cold...
“What is it? Why aren’t you doing anything?”
She tried. God, she really did. But there was nothing left, nothing to knit together, nothing to call her forward. “Cole-”
“Stop wasting time! I know you can heal her! Why haven’t-”
“Because I can’t heal the dead!” She was crying, she realized. She’d barely known the girl but she’d seemed nice and it wasn’t fair that she had to die no matter how many stupid platitudes people threw at her about fate or the timeline or whatever you wanted to call it because Paige decided that this entire situation fucking sucked. And fate was perfectly welcome to go screw itself when the one person she’d actually wanted to save was the only one she couldn’t.
Cole pulled her hands back. “Try harder.”
She tore away from him, more furious with herself than his desperation. “I can’t! Don’t you get it? There’s nothing left! She’s gone!”
“She’s not allowed to be!”
The hit from above caught him off guard, head snapping to the side and remaining there in frozen shock. Paige looked up to find Ru, fist still curled and face as inscrutable as ever.
“It is time,” he said slowly, “for you to go home, boy.”
A penetrating silence. Even those watching outside the tableau remained quiet, breaths held and waiting, waiting.
“If-if you hadn’t sent her out,” Cole muttered, turning to Ru with carefully schooled rage. His voice rose. “If you hadn’t insisted on that damn money-”
Ru abruptly dropped down next to his level, noses barely an inch apart and eyes steady on his. The sudden invasive proximity startled Cole into silence.
“You brought my daughter back and I thank you,” Ru said with a quiet sort of dignity. “But there is nothing left for you here.” He looked to Paige. It wasn’t passivity in his expression, she realized now, but weary, crushing grief. “Take him home.”
You didn’t argue with a man who had lost so much. You couldn’t. So Paige rose and, avoiding even a stray glance at the dead girl directly, placed her hands on Cole’s shoulders. “Come on.”
“Please,” he whispered. What he meant - request, permission, prayer - she didn’t know. She looked into the faces surrounding them, these people who had lost so much and bore so many scars that could not be seen, could not be measured.
She said gently, “We don’t belong here.”
***
Gertrude, for once, was shocked into silence at their reappearance. When she managed to pull herself together, all she said was “Coleridge, your coat’s torn.”
He fingered the black fabric, looking without expression at the ugly wound beneath it. “Oh.”
“Both of you upstairs,” Gertrude said. “The solarium’s no place for this.”
Paige spent nearly an hour in her room, at least half of that time at the washbasin trying to scrub dried blood from underneath her fingernails. By the time she was finished, the water was tinged a pale, sickly pink. What she really wanted was a pair of flannel pajamas suitable to curl up in but had to settle for a nightgown and housecoat.
A pang of tremendous homesickness hit. Yeah, the house was the same but her family was gone. She missed the squabbles and the insults and the sisterly bonding and her stupid inferiority complex. She missed hugs over bad break-ups and Tom Cruise movie marathons with Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and a shoulder to cry on after a bad day left her feeling worn and years older.
Goddamnit, she wanted her life back. But today, at least, she wasn’t going to get it. So, though all she wanted to do was collapse on the bed and sob, she left to find Gertrude and offer what assistance she could.
She found her still attending Cole in what would one day be Piper’s room. He was much cleaner, wounds bandaged and arm in a crude sling. Gertrude finished taping a bandage on his forehead before looking at Paige and nodding slightly. She gathered her first aid materials and met the younger woman out in the hallway. Cole gave no indication he’d even noticed her departure.
“What in the world happened?” Gertrude murmured. “He said that injury on his arm came from a bullet.”
“Probably did but I wouldn’t know. I guess it was the same guy that shot Abelone.”
Gertrude shook her head. “That poor girl.”
“Yeah.” Paige snorted. “Who knew demon-boy actually cared about her?”
Gertrude didn’t answer immediately but when she did her tone was cool. “You know, dear, perhaps your problem isn’t that you are unable to save those you deem worthy of the effort. Perhaps it is that you cannot notice those that need saving when they sit right in front of you.”
“What - what’s that supposed to mean?” But Gertrude had already walked away. Paige scowled and looked back at Cole. He’d moved to stare out the window at the twilight sky but remained with his back to her.
She sighed. Like it or not, she wanted to know exactly what had happened to Abelone and the only one who could tell her was standing in that room. Squaring her shoulders, Paige marched right in and stopped beside him. She debated how best to broach the subject but before she could open her mouth, Cole spoke.
“You were right.”
“What?”
“About me. You, Mother, Raynor, you were right. I’m evil.” He said it without inflection, a flat statement of fact. “I left her alone.” He tightened his fists. “I was so - so angry at them for hurting her but I couldn’t tell which one pulled the trigger so I had to kill them all.”
Paige went cold. “Who did you kill?”
“The tong, the gang. Maybe some of the police. I don’t really remember. I think one of them shot me. It didn’t hurt so badly as I thought it would.” His hand fluttered to the bandage on his upper arm and hovered there as though not quite sure what do with itself. “I had to leave her alone when I followed them and I suppose I left her alone for too long and she died. But I’m not sorry I killed those men. I’d do it again if I could. So, you see, you were right.” He laughed, a dry, broken sound. “Only a demon wouldn’t feel sorry.”
Everything she had ever wanted to hear him say, this confession without the self-righteous justifications. It was what she had screamed at him for the better part of a year, insisting that he could never change, that what he was rendered him incapable of it.
So why did vindication feel so hollow?
When had she become this woman, the one who judged and found wanting all those she deemed inhuman? When had her priorities shifted from protecting the innocent to punishing the guilty? When did she forget that monsters were all too often created by the actions of human beings and ever so rarely born that way?
She had thought quitting her job would give her a greater chance to help people. Instead it had left her unbalanced, her grounding in the ordinary and all too real problems of the mundane world ripped away. She hadn’t found her calling; she’d lost her compassion.
And frankly, she didn’t much like what that said about her.
She shifted, stood directly in front of Cole and forced him to look at her. “Cole, listen to me. You’re only evil if you choose to be evil.”
“Don’t you listen?” He shook his head. “I don’t care that those men are dead. I’m-I’m glad they are.”
“Cole.” The word came out as a command. “I’m not going to tell you that what you did today was right, because it isn’t. And I’m not going to tell you that being half-demon isn’t a big thing because it is and it’s something you’re going to have to deal with. But you’re half-human too and that means you’ve got the choice to live your life however you want to live it.”
“But you said-”
“I was wrong, okay? Record the moment for posterity because I don’t admit that often but it’s one of those being human things. We make mistakes. We screw up all the time. But if we know it, we can fix it. Question is, are you willing to do the same?”
“I’m not human.”
“Part of you is.”
He shook his head. “No!”
She placed her hand on his uninjured shoulder. “Yes.”
“No, stop.” He tired to pull away but she held firm. “Stop doing this!”
“Doing what? For once, calling you out on what a bullshit excuse you keep giving me?”
“I’m evil, do you understand? Let me be!” The cry of a confused, bewildered child and God, she’d seen so many lost children in her time.
“And watch you can run away again?” Into the numb Brotherhood or impossible fantasies of reconciliation or the madness that would one day consume him. It had to stop somewhere. “Sorry, kiddo. Not happening.”
“Please.” Begging, desperate. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Making me feel.” And this he spoke of as his greatest sin.
“Why? ‘Cause it’s hard? Because maybe you don’t like what that means? Newsflash: it is hard and you won’t like it.” Both hands cupping his face now, eyes looking into his. “But that other way? The one where you can do whatever you want because you’ve given yourself the excuse that evil doesn’t care? It’s a cop-out. It’s the coward’s way out. And I’ve thought you were a lot of things but I never thought you were coward. You wanna prove me wrong?”
She saw him struggle, body tense and chest heaving in short, constricted breaths, but the inevitable was only held at bay for so long. His face completely crumpled and he curled into her, a few quiet sobs beginning to escape. Paige wrapped her arms around him and marveled: she’d never seen Cole Turner cry.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said over and over. “I’m so sorry.”
She said nothing, only held him as the boy she would one day know as a man clung to her and wept.
END PART SEVEN
Fandom: Charmed
Disclaimer: They belong to Constance Burge, Brad Kern and the WB
Rating: PG-13
Original Publication: FF.net, April 2004 - June 2004
Summary: In which the time-space continuum is heavily abused and second chances are found.
Previous Parts:
Prologue
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
PART SEVEN
A day of grief lasts longer than a month of joy.
-Chinese proverb
They stayed up late talking. Paige knew this because she’d heard their murmurs even after she’d gone to bed. Though it’d taken an earthquake to wake her up the night before, it was her own insomnia that had her watching the sunrise over a burning city this morning.
The two lovebirds had fallen asleep on the couch, Cole on his back, Abelone sprawled on top of him, dried tear tracks still evident on her face. Whatever they’d spoken about the night before seemed to have resulted in some sort of understanding between them if the way Cole held her hand even in sleep was any indication.
“Coffee?” Gertrude’s soft voice drew her from her thoughts. She accepted the offered cup as the other witch settled herself on the opposite side of the window seat. She looked drawn. “The fire’s grown worse, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Although the sun had managed to shed some light below, black smoke hung heavy in the sky. “It’ll be like this for a couple days.”
“My city won’t be the same, will it?”
“No.”
Gertrude sighed. Paige didn’t think of her as particularly old, but her current demeanor aged her. “Odd, but I think I’ll miss it. Isn’t that a strange thing?”
“I guess, but I get it.”
“I’m getting too old to tolerate it.” She smiled at Paige’s disbelieving snort. “I know what you think but eventually it’s true for all of us. I can’t bear to watch a city I love change so utterly. Leaving is better, I think. Let the young people come and make a place for themselves.”
“If it makes you feel any better, they will. I grew up here and it’s a pretty great place to be.”
“That’s a small comfort then.”
The view of ruin outside was growing painful to watch and so Paige found her attention drifting back to the subject of her earlier musings. Cole remained asleep under her glare though Gertrude noticed where her focus lay. “Perhaps I’m not the only one to dislike change.”
“You never give up, do you?” Paige shook her head. “I’m never going to like him. I can’t. Not after seeing what he’s done to the people I care about.”
“Even if the man you speak of doesn’t exist yet?”
“He will eventually. I’ll handle him now because I have to but don’t ever think it’s because I want to.”
“And yet you seem quite familiar with him regardless. Was there never a time when you found common ground?”
She’d screwed up big time. Hurt her sisters because she hadn’t listened to them. Hurt Cole because he’d trusted her to protect them from himself. Instead she’d just made the whole situation worse, as Phoebe continued to not-so-subtly remind her.
She didn’t expect him to defend her. “Shouldn't you guys give Paige a break? She had good intentions, that's gotta count for something.”
She blinked. “Thank you. I think.”
He wasn’t just talking about her and they both knew it, but he gave her a small encouraging smile anyway, a wry reminder that once upon a time, she’d found him a little attractive...
“No,” she said because little white lies were always easier than complicated truths. “And we never will.”
They finished the rest of their coffee in silence.
***
The trail from yesterday had long since grown cold and Paige was at a loss as to where a middle-aged man who’d recently become homeless might go in 1906.
It was Gertrude who suggested the parks. “Surely the national guard has mobilized by now. Won’t they organize camps for the displaced?”
Paige nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. I know the Presidio definitely had a whole bunch of tents set up.”
Cole frowned. “Set up when?”
Paige sighed. It wasn’t worth explaining the whole Back to the Future mix-up at the moment. “Never mind.”
“I-I’m not sure he’d even be there,” Abelone said. She added quietly, “They might not let him.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s Chinese,” Cole answered, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. Which, Paige, supposed, it just might be in this time.
Paige decided this called for a deep and profound statement. “Racism sucks.”
That just got her confused looks all around. Good. Now maybe they’d know how she felt.
“Is there anywhere else he might be?” Gertrude asked Abelone gently. “Any friends? Family?”
“All his friends live in Chinatown. I’m his only family.”
“But the camps will have medical tents.” Cole drew her to him, let her rest her head on his shoulder. “If he’s injured, they couldn’t turn him away. He’s not a stupid man. He’d know that the Presidio or Fort Mason are the best places to go.”
“And I could probably orb there without a problem. It’s our best bet, really,” Paige said.
No one mentioned the possibility of Ru being injured beyond the ability to go anywhere. No one dared.
Gertrude demurred from accompanying them and so it was a trio that arrived in a grove of trees off the main refugee site, hidden from curious eyes. They approached the neat rows of white tents already buzzing with activity as soldiers intermingled with the homeless, the injured and uniformed Red Cross.
It was a needle in a haystack.
That didn’t deter Abelone. She approached every vaguely official-looking person to cross their path, inquiring as the whereabouts of a Chinese man called Ru Ling who might be looking for his daughter. Most shook their head in response. Some simply looked harried. Others made rude comments about her heritage. Abelone didn’t react in any way other to thank them for their time and move on.
Paige, on other hand, muttered some choice spells at the more offensive ones. Nothing terrible and nothing that she believed would violate the premise of personal gain - it was, after all, in passive defense of Abelone - but they probably wouldn’t be sleeping comfortably for a few days.
The situation didn’t improve as the day wore on. They were directed to several areas segregated specifically for Chinese refugees but upon their arrival often found nothing at all or new camps set up for the rest of the population, soldiers there just directing them somewhere else. Frustration in all three of them continued to climb.
Paige was very close to calling a halt to that day’s hunt when in one of the far camps, someone called Abelone’s name. Neither Paige nor Cole heard the first time, stopping only because Abelone did. The call came again, then a third time. On alert now, they scanned the crowd around them, eyes out for a familiar face. Abelone finally gave a cry.
“Ba! Papa!”
She took off at a run for the Red Cross tent, nearly tripping over the hem of her dress as she collapsed next to where her father sat on a small, worn cot. Ru held her as she lapsed into Chinese, lined face breaking into a wan, relieved smile. It left Cole and Paige standing somewhat awkwardly off to the side.
“Do you understand any of that?” Paige said, head tilted toward the reunited pair.
Cole frowned. “A little. It’s too quick for me to catch much. Why?”
“Just wondering if you were going to be of any use at all today.”
Cole glowered but refrained from rising to the bait. By this point, Abelone and Ru were engaged in a rapid-fire discussion that had Ru sending sharp glances toward Paige and Cole every once in a while. He eventually turned to address them directly. “Mr. Turner.”
“Ah, yes, sir.” He appeared at a loss as to what to call the older man.
“You have been acting as a gentleman, I trust.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, good. And Miss Matthews, my daughter has been telling me most interesting things about you.”
“Um, what sort of things?”
Ru smiled. “Good ones.”
“Thanks. I think.”
Ru directed another question at Abelone who shook her head at it. He said something else and tried to get up, agitating her further.
“What’s wrong?” Cole asked.
“He wants to get up and go back to his shop, but he can’t. Papa, you can’t,” she said back at Ru, gesturing toward the bandage on his forehead. “You’re hurt.”
“But the safe-”
“What safe?” Paige said.
“The one at his shop. It has the week’s profits in it and bonds from the bank.”
“I always repay my debts. And Qiu needs his pay.”
“Papa, no. He wouldn’t expect it of you.” Ru tried to rise again only to be pushed back down. They exchanged a more heated conversation in Chinese before Abelone sighed.
“I’ll go but Papa, you must stay here!”
“Go? Lon - Abelone, you’re not serious!”
“What choice do I have? We-we have so little left,” she finished tearfully. “If we can save something, anything...”
“For all you know, the shop is burnt to the ground by this point.”
“I hate to say it, but he’s got a point,” Paige said. “It’s pretty risky.”
“I don’t plan on staying any longer than necessary. But I have to at least try. It’s - it’s important.”
Cole stared at her in disbelief before rubbing a hand over his face and growling in frustration. “Fine. I’ll go with you.”
It was Paige’s turn to stare. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Better I go with her than leave her on her own.”
Paige protested again but Abelone just smiled. “It’ll be fine, you’ll see.”
“Crazy people. I am surrounded by crazy people,” the Charmed One muttered.
“No one asked you to stay,” Cole said.
She glared. “Like I would trust you by yourself.”
Abelone stopped just short of rolling her eyes at them. “Paige, you don’t have to come. Cole and I can manage.”
“You sure?”
“I can take care of her,” Cole gritted out.
“You couldn’t take care of a pet rock.”
Ru frowned. “What is this thing, a ‘pet rock’?”
“Abelone-”
“Paige, please, I need you to stay with my father. You can help more here.” She waved hands in imitation of Paige from last night.
Paige took the hint. “Okay, okay. But he tries anything - and I mean, anything - you tell me so I can kick his ass.”
“Excuse me?”
“I will.” Before Cole could say anything further, Abelone grabbed his hand and started to weave back toward the south Presidio entrance. “We’ll be back soon.”
Paige and Ru watched them disappear back into the crowds. Ru turned to Paige. “You know, you do not look very much like a shaman woman.”
Paige sighed.
***
Cole hovered anxiously outside the modest tailor’s shop that more or less still stood miraculously intact. He’d explained some of his abilities to Lonnie - Abelone, he reminded himself, she preferred Abelone - the previous evening, although not how he had come by them. He had long believed in the advantages of practicality. In light of Paige and Gertrude’s revelations, there seemed to be no reason to hide his powers anymore, especially if they could come in useful as the shimmer over here had so amply proved. Abelone’s delighted grin at the demonstration was merely a convenient benefit.
He shifted his weight and glowered at the entryway. Another damn talisman had been posted there, preventing his entrance and forcing him to create some excuse about standing guard while a bewildered Abelone entered the shop alone. He might be ready to admit that he knew about and used magic but he wasn’t even close to discussing his demonhood, threats from Matthews aside.
Bloody hell, how long did it take to open a safe anyway? The fire had driven most of the remaining residents to the refugee camps, leaving behind an eerily quiet city that, though he would never admit aloud, left him nervous. He silently willed Abelone to hurry.
A commotion up the street drew his attention. A group of men had turned the corner of the block and now yelled at each other in angry Chinese. As they began to run up the street, he could see they carried full valises and bore red kanji on the sleeves of their high-collared shirts. Cole read even less Chinese than he spoke but he recognized the significance of the character.
A tong, one of the brutal street gangs that roved through Chinatown. It appeared they’d seized the opportunity to loot some of the now abandoned shops, although their actions hadn’t gone unnoticed. A second group of men in police blue followed. Upon spying their pursuers, one of the gang members paused briefly to turn and fire a revolver at the officers, causing them at first to scatter, then draw their own weapons.
A short, ugly firefight followed, forcing Cole to the ground just in time to avoid a stray bullet. He heard a shatter and then a rain of glass fell on his back and head. More yelling, a few more shots, then pounding on the pavement as the chase continued.
When it appeared that the majority of the action had moved up the street, he raised his head.
Abelone stood in the doorway, staring straight ahead.
“Abelone, you should get back.”
Her head turned with strange, sluggish motion. She moved her lips but no sound came out.
Then she collapsed.
He scrambled over to her, turning her face up. At first he couldn’t understand her sudden faint. Nothing was wrong with her except a small red stain on the front of her blouse.
And then the stain started to grow.
Blood. Too much. More on her back, soaking through to his hand, ruining her shirtwaist. Oh, she’d hate that, she always took such pride in keeping her clothes neat. How could this happen? She’d been inside, out of the way. She’d…
His eyes drifted to the shattered window. They followed the men fleeing along the ruined road.
Something in Cole Turner broke.
Bones shifted and cracked under sinew that stretched across rippling skin. Teeth lengthened into fine points. Blue eyes flooded beetle black. The world turned red.
And Belthazor roared.
***
Paige paced. Abalone and Cole had been gone longer than expected and since she had little to do except sit around and wait, she paced. Because that’s what a person did when they felt useless.
Ru, meanwhile, seemed content to chat with her. “Remarkable gift you have. Remarkable. My cut is almost quite healed.”
“Uh-huh.”
“When I was a boy, there was a woman in my village. She knew many strange things, like you. Her healing was not so - ah what is the word... immediate? Yes, immediate. But remarkable all the same.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She often taught the children little tricks. Not as powerful as anything she might create herself - that you must be born with - but little things. Some herbs, how to hold our prayer beads, how to protect against evil spirits. It has been years, but I have never forgotten.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in but when they did she stared at him with new eyes. His level expression remained serene.
“It was you,” she said. “You’re the one who created that talisman.”
“Yes. As I said, a little thing. I worry for my daughter. She never truly could find her place in the world. And Mr. Turner seems like a very confused boy.”
“Wait. You knew what he was?”
“That he could have a bad spirit? Yes. All men may, at some point.”
“That’s not what I-” She stopped as a rather remarkable and more than a little disquieting thought occurred to her. “Oh my God, if I hadn’t been at the apartment...”
“There is nothing that does not have its mandate,” Ru told her. He sounded melancholy. “No matter how much we might wish it otherwise.”
“MATTHEWS!”
The yell came from a male throat, raw and desperate.
“MATTHEWS! HELP!”
Cole, no doubt about it. Paige fought her way through a suddenly buzzing crowd to the edge of the Chinese encampment. When she saw what had drawn their attention, ice gripped her veins.
Cole stood at the end of the row, Abelone in his arms. Both were covered in blood. Wide blue eyes locked onto her own.
“Help,” he said hoarsely, legs buckling beneath him. Paige barely had enough time to ease Abelone to the ground before his grip loosened entirely and he fell to his knees.
“What the hell happened?” Oh God, the blood was everywhere. And Abelone. Her color was all wrong. No one should actually look grey. That was for stories and metaphors, not for real life flesh and blood people.
Cole grabbed her hands and pulled them over Abelone’s chest. “Heal her.”
“Cole, I-”
“Like before! Heal her!” His grip tightened, turning painful. Blood on his hands, now on hers. Could it all be Abelone’s? No, no, he had cuts, too and a wound on his upper arm had reduced the skin to mangled meat. She averted her eyes before her stomach could completely rebel.
“Okay, okay. Just - just give me -” She unbuttoned Abelone’s shirtwaist with trembling fingers to find the source of the problem. Not that she actually needed to see it to heal it but it helped to give her something to focus on instead of how still Abelone was and how manic Cole had become and had he done this? Was this some bizarre, insane trick of his, ha, ha, fooled you, Paige, see what really happens to anyone who dares to actually care about me?
The wound was a circular mark on the chest no bigger in circumference then in her index finger. Stick it in there and stop the blood from flowing, a dam held back by sheer force of will.
Guns weren’t Cole’s style.
And the skin was so cold...
“What is it? Why aren’t you doing anything?”
She tried. God, she really did. But there was nothing left, nothing to knit together, nothing to call her forward. “Cole-”
“Stop wasting time! I know you can heal her! Why haven’t-”
“Because I can’t heal the dead!” She was crying, she realized. She’d barely known the girl but she’d seemed nice and it wasn’t fair that she had to die no matter how many stupid platitudes people threw at her about fate or the timeline or whatever you wanted to call it because Paige decided that this entire situation fucking sucked. And fate was perfectly welcome to go screw itself when the one person she’d actually wanted to save was the only one she couldn’t.
Cole pulled her hands back. “Try harder.”
She tore away from him, more furious with herself than his desperation. “I can’t! Don’t you get it? There’s nothing left! She’s gone!”
“She’s not allowed to be!”
The hit from above caught him off guard, head snapping to the side and remaining there in frozen shock. Paige looked up to find Ru, fist still curled and face as inscrutable as ever.
“It is time,” he said slowly, “for you to go home, boy.”
A penetrating silence. Even those watching outside the tableau remained quiet, breaths held and waiting, waiting.
“If-if you hadn’t sent her out,” Cole muttered, turning to Ru with carefully schooled rage. His voice rose. “If you hadn’t insisted on that damn money-”
Ru abruptly dropped down next to his level, noses barely an inch apart and eyes steady on his. The sudden invasive proximity startled Cole into silence.
“You brought my daughter back and I thank you,” Ru said with a quiet sort of dignity. “But there is nothing left for you here.” He looked to Paige. It wasn’t passivity in his expression, she realized now, but weary, crushing grief. “Take him home.”
You didn’t argue with a man who had lost so much. You couldn’t. So Paige rose and, avoiding even a stray glance at the dead girl directly, placed her hands on Cole’s shoulders. “Come on.”
“Please,” he whispered. What he meant - request, permission, prayer - she didn’t know. She looked into the faces surrounding them, these people who had lost so much and bore so many scars that could not be seen, could not be measured.
She said gently, “We don’t belong here.”
***
Gertrude, for once, was shocked into silence at their reappearance. When she managed to pull herself together, all she said was “Coleridge, your coat’s torn.”
He fingered the black fabric, looking without expression at the ugly wound beneath it. “Oh.”
“Both of you upstairs,” Gertrude said. “The solarium’s no place for this.”
Paige spent nearly an hour in her room, at least half of that time at the washbasin trying to scrub dried blood from underneath her fingernails. By the time she was finished, the water was tinged a pale, sickly pink. What she really wanted was a pair of flannel pajamas suitable to curl up in but had to settle for a nightgown and housecoat.
A pang of tremendous homesickness hit. Yeah, the house was the same but her family was gone. She missed the squabbles and the insults and the sisterly bonding and her stupid inferiority complex. She missed hugs over bad break-ups and Tom Cruise movie marathons with Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and a shoulder to cry on after a bad day left her feeling worn and years older.
Goddamnit, she wanted her life back. But today, at least, she wasn’t going to get it. So, though all she wanted to do was collapse on the bed and sob, she left to find Gertrude and offer what assistance she could.
She found her still attending Cole in what would one day be Piper’s room. He was much cleaner, wounds bandaged and arm in a crude sling. Gertrude finished taping a bandage on his forehead before looking at Paige and nodding slightly. She gathered her first aid materials and met the younger woman out in the hallway. Cole gave no indication he’d even noticed her departure.
“What in the world happened?” Gertrude murmured. “He said that injury on his arm came from a bullet.”
“Probably did but I wouldn’t know. I guess it was the same guy that shot Abelone.”
Gertrude shook her head. “That poor girl.”
“Yeah.” Paige snorted. “Who knew demon-boy actually cared about her?”
Gertrude didn’t answer immediately but when she did her tone was cool. “You know, dear, perhaps your problem isn’t that you are unable to save those you deem worthy of the effort. Perhaps it is that you cannot notice those that need saving when they sit right in front of you.”
“What - what’s that supposed to mean?” But Gertrude had already walked away. Paige scowled and looked back at Cole. He’d moved to stare out the window at the twilight sky but remained with his back to her.
She sighed. Like it or not, she wanted to know exactly what had happened to Abelone and the only one who could tell her was standing in that room. Squaring her shoulders, Paige marched right in and stopped beside him. She debated how best to broach the subject but before she could open her mouth, Cole spoke.
“You were right.”
“What?”
“About me. You, Mother, Raynor, you were right. I’m evil.” He said it without inflection, a flat statement of fact. “I left her alone.” He tightened his fists. “I was so - so angry at them for hurting her but I couldn’t tell which one pulled the trigger so I had to kill them all.”
Paige went cold. “Who did you kill?”
“The tong, the gang. Maybe some of the police. I don’t really remember. I think one of them shot me. It didn’t hurt so badly as I thought it would.” His hand fluttered to the bandage on his upper arm and hovered there as though not quite sure what do with itself. “I had to leave her alone when I followed them and I suppose I left her alone for too long and she died. But I’m not sorry I killed those men. I’d do it again if I could. So, you see, you were right.” He laughed, a dry, broken sound. “Only a demon wouldn’t feel sorry.”
Everything she had ever wanted to hear him say, this confession without the self-righteous justifications. It was what she had screamed at him for the better part of a year, insisting that he could never change, that what he was rendered him incapable of it.
So why did vindication feel so hollow?
When had she become this woman, the one who judged and found wanting all those she deemed inhuman? When had her priorities shifted from protecting the innocent to punishing the guilty? When did she forget that monsters were all too often created by the actions of human beings and ever so rarely born that way?
She had thought quitting her job would give her a greater chance to help people. Instead it had left her unbalanced, her grounding in the ordinary and all too real problems of the mundane world ripped away. She hadn’t found her calling; she’d lost her compassion.
And frankly, she didn’t much like what that said about her.
She shifted, stood directly in front of Cole and forced him to look at her. “Cole, listen to me. You’re only evil if you choose to be evil.”
“Don’t you listen?” He shook his head. “I don’t care that those men are dead. I’m-I’m glad they are.”
“Cole.” The word came out as a command. “I’m not going to tell you that what you did today was right, because it isn’t. And I’m not going to tell you that being half-demon isn’t a big thing because it is and it’s something you’re going to have to deal with. But you’re half-human too and that means you’ve got the choice to live your life however you want to live it.”
“But you said-”
“I was wrong, okay? Record the moment for posterity because I don’t admit that often but it’s one of those being human things. We make mistakes. We screw up all the time. But if we know it, we can fix it. Question is, are you willing to do the same?”
“I’m not human.”
“Part of you is.”
He shook his head. “No!”
She placed her hand on his uninjured shoulder. “Yes.”
“No, stop.” He tired to pull away but she held firm. “Stop doing this!”
“Doing what? For once, calling you out on what a bullshit excuse you keep giving me?”
“I’m evil, do you understand? Let me be!” The cry of a confused, bewildered child and God, she’d seen so many lost children in her time.
“And watch you can run away again?” Into the numb Brotherhood or impossible fantasies of reconciliation or the madness that would one day consume him. It had to stop somewhere. “Sorry, kiddo. Not happening.”
“Please.” Begging, desperate. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Making me feel.” And this he spoke of as his greatest sin.
“Why? ‘Cause it’s hard? Because maybe you don’t like what that means? Newsflash: it is hard and you won’t like it.” Both hands cupping his face now, eyes looking into his. “But that other way? The one where you can do whatever you want because you’ve given yourself the excuse that evil doesn’t care? It’s a cop-out. It’s the coward’s way out. And I’ve thought you were a lot of things but I never thought you were coward. You wanna prove me wrong?”
She saw him struggle, body tense and chest heaving in short, constricted breaths, but the inevitable was only held at bay for so long. His face completely crumpled and he curled into her, a few quiet sobs beginning to escape. Paige wrapped her arms around him and marveled: she’d never seen Cole Turner cry.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said over and over. “I’m so sorry.”
She said nothing, only held him as the boy she would one day know as a man clung to her and wept.
END PART SEVEN