Third Time Charmed

Charmed Again (Part 13)

"He's around here somewhere," said Leo as he and the sisters got out of Piper's Jeep.

"There!" said Prue, spotting Cole lying against a tree, and kneeling to examine his bloody wound. His eyes were rolling back in his head. "It's bad, Leo."

Piper took a breath, and raised her hands, freezing Cole to buy him time. "Heal him," she ordered her husband, noticing his hesitance.

"You know that it's against the rules," Leo responded. He had been severely reprimanded by the Elders for healing Cole on a previous occasion, and he hadn't even known the man was half-demon at the time.

"Hold on, Cole. The job's not done yet," Prue told him, then turned to Leo. "As much as it pains me to say it, we need him, and so do the Elders if they want us to take down the Source. That's clear after what happened tonight."

"Prue's right, Leo. Cole's proven himself as an ally, and Phoebe would want us to help him," she said.

Kneeling, Leo waved a hand over Cole's abdomen, and explained, "Even if I could, I could only heal his human half and that...wouldn't be enough power to save him with a wound like this."

"Aren't I half-Whitelighter?" Paige interjected meekly, recalling Prue's words at the church, and what Leo had done for the inspector. "I mean, couldn't I use my half to offset his half?"

"It's worth a try. Take my hand," Leo answered after some consideration, taking Paige's left hand in his right, and pulling her down to kneel beside him. "Hold your other hand over his wound."

Paige complied, feeling a warmth radiate from Leo's right hand into her left, then through her body, as if they had completed a circuit. After a few seconds, both of their free hands began to emit yellow light, which shone down into Cole's wound, affecting the tissue there. As if watching a video on rewind, the damage there began to reverse itself. Soon, no evidence of a wound remained.

Suddenly, Cole unfroze and gasped for air. He clutched at his stomach, taking in the people looming over him. Even without Phoebe's urging, they had come for him. Leo had even broken his rules and healed him. He figured that when the time came, Prue would have been glad to see the back of him, but she was here, even if she wouldn't meet his gaze. "Thanks," he breathed.

"That was good, right?" Paige asked, only too aware of her recent flirtation with evil.

"That was very good," Piper assured her. "Let's just hope it wasn't all for nothing."

***

Cortez had expected to return to the station that evening with the evidence needed to expose the Halliwell sisters. When he reached his desk with a recording that did just that, he wasn't sure what to do with it anymore.

The video showed what kind of freaky stuff the Halliwells were into, something that probably got their sister and the doctor killed, but it also showed him getting...shot, he supposed, by some sort of...monster, then being saved by the husband, a "Whitelighter," which was what, some kind of angel? Then there was Paige Matthews, a potential victim. She didn't seem afraid of the sisters.

Darryl Morris had tried to explain things, but so sure he was on to the bust of a lifetime, Cortez hadn't listened, hadn't wanted to listen. In the back of his mind, he had been searching for something like this, something that might prove the existence of the supernatural, ever since his sister, Ana's mysterious death.

What if Morris was right about the Halliwells, and they were the good guys? What if trying to save Dr. Griffiths had cost them their sister? Would turning them in stop them from saving others like him, like Ana? Was that why Morris was covering for them?