Second Chance
Prelude of SHIMMER: An AU

Very seldom are people given second chances. Most of the time you only get one opportunity, one instant to make things work or screw them up irreversibly. The beauty of free will is that you, and only you, get to choose whether you are going to rise up to your potential or sit back and watch the rest of the world pass you by.

But some things are too important to mess up. Sometimes, what seems to be the right thing at the time can turn out to be the worst possible thing you could have done. Luckily, there is a higher power that keeps an eye on these things. It is not on the side of good, nor on the side of evil. It is the impartial witness to all the happenings in the world. It is governed by thousands of little creatures – "Fate's Children" is the rough translation of their name – who watch over everything and make sure that things ultimately go as planned.

You can screw with your destiny, but sometimes Fate is too important to leave in the hands of mortals. Sometimes, someone has to intervene.

When the triad sent Belthazor after the Charmed Ones, the Fate's Children in charge of the Halliwells rejoiced. The love between the half-demon and the youngest Halliwell was inescapable. All those two need to do was meet and the inevitable would happen. And at last, the opportunity had arisen.

But something went wrong

Mortals are funny creatures. They were given the gift of free will, but don't always have the intelligence to make the right decisions. Often they choose a path that no one, save another mortal, could have ever predicted.

Sometimes, some choices are intolerable.

Something went wrong with Phoebe and Cole. When no one was looking, they made decisions that would change the future.

The future is always in motion. Sometimes it just needs a little helped to be shaped.

So, when Phoebe lay weeping beside Cole's battered and broken body, Fate's Children had to do what they despised – intervene. At first, no one noticed when several thousand tiny lights, each no bigger than the head of a pin, swarmed the heartbreaking scene. They became brighter and brighter until at last there was only painful white light, as far as the eye could see. It became brighter still, until the whole world was engulfed. No one could withstand it.

Six months earlier, Cole Turner, Assistant District Attorney, was late for work.

End Prologue
Thursday, January 25, 2001
Revised Saturday, December 15, 2001
Further revised Sunday, August 04, 2002

I was doing my best not to study for my exams last night, and this idea popped into my head. What-if Cole hadn't been sent by the Triad? What would his relationship with Phoebe be like then? SHIMMER was born. There will be seven parts in all, including the prologue. Each part will have a different name, each starting with a letter of SHIMMER.