Post by StoryGirl83 on Jan 7, 2009 21:41:33 GMT -5
Chapter Six - Unfamiliar
The first thing Cole noticed was a sense of freedom, one he hadn’t felt in all the time since he left the wasteland. Even when Paige had stripped his powers and Barbas has gotten them, he hadn’t felt like this and that had felt good up until he had realized he would have to take the powers back.
Cole looked around the apartment. Nothing about it was familiar except the shape of the room. The furniture was different. There were pictures on the wall. He walked over to them and looked at the pictures on the wall. The people in them were unfamiliar. Clearly whatever else he had changed, his address was one of them.
Cole tried to shimmer out and was stunned to discover he couldn’t. Except for a brief period the previous year he had always been able to shimmer. It was a strange feeling, one he had never gotten used to. He sighed. Since he wasn’t getting out of the apartment by shimmering, he figured he had better be getting out by other means, quickly.
As he headed for the elevator and hopefully an uneventful exit his pocket began to ring. He pulled an unfamiliar cell phone out of his right slacks pocket, noting as he did that like everything else, his clothes were not what they had been a few minutes before. Hopefully that was a good thing. As he went to open his phone he noticed something else. On his left ring finger was what looked like a wedding band. He would have taken a closer look, but the phone rang, again. He opened the cell and put it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Hey, Baby, it’s me.”
Cole smiled at the friendly tone in Phoebe’s voice. Better, and better. “Hey, Phoebe.” As he reached the elevator it opened and a man came out. He entered and pushed the button for the ground floor.
“Piper called,” Phoebe informed him. “She wanted to know if we could come over. You weren’t home so I thought I’d try your cell.”
“Is everything all right?” Cole asked, hoping that no one had noticed anything up. The door closed on the elevator and it started down.
“I’m not sure,” Phoebe admitted. “She said that Prue told her to call, but she didn’t mention why?”
Prue!? Cole was sure the look on his face was one of pure shock. Was she saying Prue was alive? Was that even possible? He tried to remember back, to remember if Prue was still alive at the time of the witch’s death. She had been, he realized.
“Cole?” Phoebe asked, a bit curious, maybe a tinge concerned.
“Sorry,” Cole replied at once. “So Piper wants us to meet her and Prue at the manor.”
“That’s right,” Phoebe agreed. “Where are you anyway?”
“Nowhere near the manor,” he admitted. He switched the cell in his hands, so he could pull out his wallet. One handed he opened it and found there was plenty of money in it. “I’ll have to call a cab, so I might be a while.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you there,” Phoebe assured him, “unless you want a ride.”
Cole shook his head even though she couldn’t see it. “No, if something is wrong, you’ll want to get there quickly.”
“Right,” Phoebe agreed. “Oh!”
Concerned filled Cole. “Phoebe, is something wrong?”
“No,” Phoebe told him. Cole could almost see her grinning, the tone of her voice was so filled with happiness. “It’s just our baby saying hello.”
Our baby?! If there had been anything that would shock him more than Prue being alive it was Phoebe being pregnant. And yet it shouldn’t have surprised him, not if the ring on his finger meant what he thought it did. Married people had babies. And yet it couldn’t be the same baby.
“Cole? Baby? Is everything all right?”
Cole smiled. “Yes, everything is all right. I’ll meet you at the manor.”
“I love you,” Phoebe told him.
The words filled him with contentment. “I love you, Phoebe.” He closed his phone as the elevator opened to the ground floor. Now, he had to figure out how to get to the Halliwell Manor without shimmering and without his own car. Hopefully it wouldn’t be hard to hail a cab.