ONE LAST CHANCE
By AussieHottieMjM

DISCLAIMER
I don't own Charmed or its characters. I do, however, own this story. So please: Don't steal.

RATING
This fic is rated T for language, violence, and adult situations.

SYNOPSIS
The future of the world rests on the shoulders of... Cole?!

SETTING
This fic is meant to be the season six premiere.

AUTHOR'S NOTE
Please note, I have gone back and reorganized the chapters. What was 15 has been restructured into nine.

x x x

It was morning at the Halliwell manor. Piper was cooking, Paige was eating, Leo was orbing, and Phoebe was snoring.

"Paige, where is your sister?" Piper asked.

"Hey, she's your sister, too. Besides, she just dumped Jason from what she was hoping would be a long-term relationship."

"Yeah, well, if you asked me, a relationship can't work when the girl is in San Francisco and the boy is in Hong Kong," Piper replied. "Speaking of, have you seen Leo? He's probably been orbing everywhere from Asia to Canada and is hardly ever home to see Wyatt."

"I thought the Elders gave him Paternity leave."

"So did I, but last night they called him away and he hasn't orbed back since. I'm starting to get worried. Divorce is one family tradition I don't want to have anything to do with."

As if planned, the eldest sister's husband orbed into the kitchen. Piper was about to start up an argument, but noticed a distraught look on Leo's face.

"What's wrong?" Paige asked before Piper got the chance.

"Piper, there's been a change of plans..." he trailed.

"They're taking you off paternity leave?"

"Well, kinda. They've kinda... well, you see they..."

"Leo, spit it out!" Paige commanded.

Leo looked around. "Where's Phoebe?"

"Upstairs, and don't try to change the subject!" Piper stated.

"Look, I'd love to tell you two, but it's confidential. I'm not allowed to even talk about it; I can't breathe a word about it. I might get into trouble for telling you that much."

"Leo, tell us," said Paige eager to hear.

x x x

Phoebe lay in her bed staring at the ceiling. She had sleep marks from her pillow on her face, which was still slightly damp from crying. She hadn't realized it until she laid her hand on her cheek and felt the slightly dried tears. She wondered why she was crying over Jason; she hadn't been in love with him, he just... was there. She looked over to her chest of drawers. The bottom drawer was open. She walked over and noticed that something was missing - something she had put in their no less than a of couple months ago. She walked backwards to her bed and sat down staring at her vanity.

"Why do you cry at night?" asked a deep, male voice from the other side of the room.

Phoebe turned her head to see too familiar of a figure next to the item that was missing from her dresser - a picture of Cole and Phoebe.

"Cole?" Phoebe breathed. "You can't be..."

"I'm not. Not yet, at least. You're just thinking about me." He smiled.

"No, get out of here."

"Phoebe, I'm not here; this is all in your head. You still love me."

"No, no I don't. I know I don't."

"Do you?" Phoebe hesitated to answer. "Then tell me why you're still thinking I'm here," Cole finished. "If you're over me; if you don't love me, then forget about me."

Phoebe paused. She opened her mouth to speak but stopped.

"You can't do it, can you?" Cole asked.

Phoebe closed her eyes and focused on other things - just anything or anyone that would make her stop thinking of him. 'Work, College, Piper, Paige, Leo, Wyatt, Mom, Grams, Prue, Elise, Dad, Daryl...'

When she opened her eyes, Cole was gone. But the picture frame sat there on her desk as if it had indeed been Cole there and as if he had indeed moved it. She decided to take a shower. Perhaps hot water would help her clear her mind... of him.

x x x

Leo thought for a moment and looked at two - thirds of the Charmed Ones. He knew he couldn't tell them, so he took the easy way out...

"Uh oh, would you listen to that? Heh. They're calling me; better go," and with that, he orbed out of the kitchen.

"Leo!" Piper and Paige yelled in unison.

"What did he do this time," Phoebe said as she walked down, dressed all nice and clean. She was right - the shower had helped a little, but the problem was that now she was thinking of why she was thinking about him. What could cause her to think of him at a time like this?

They found out about Chris - he was indeed a whitelighter - except that he was also a witch. It didn't take long to fix Chris's problem. They quickly defeated the demons that had turned Wyatt evil, no harm done.

So, after they sent Chris back to the future isn't that an oxymoron, what was left of the Elders had reinstated Leo as the Charmed Ones' whitelighter and granted him, once again, a paternity leave - which by now they all knew meant that Leo would still be called away even though he didn?t have but four charges - Piper, Paige, Phoebe, and little Wyatt.

Piper and Paige told Phoebe of Leo's strange behavior and the fact that there was something going on that he wasn't clueing them in on.

"Well it sounds like he has a good reason not to tell us. I think we should just forget about Cole and move on," Phoebe said.

"Whoa, wait - did you just tell us to forget about Cole and move on?" Piper asked.

"What? No!" Phoebe began to recover. "I said that I think we should just forget about it, and you know, move on."

"Oh, my mistake," Piper said with a strange look on her face.

"Yeah, you're mistake. Why would I mention Cole's name? Thirty two must be older than we thought," Phoebe told as she took a sip of the coffee that Piper had set out for her. "Alright, well I've got to go to work, but if anything happens - well, don't call cuz I have a deadline... you know unless... someone actually dies... then you can get me." She ran out the door without waiting for a reply from her two sisters.

"You know, Piper, something is telling me that Leo isn't the only one keeping something big from us," Paige said.

"Relax, Paige, I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. It's probably some little Jason thing or... or PMS or something," Piper replied. "Hey, Paige, can I ask you something?"

"You just did, didn't you?" Paige answered.

"Paige!"

"Yeah, sure, go ahead."

"Is thirty two really that old?" Piper stated with a worried look on her face.

"Oh my gosh," Paige said as she rolled her eyes and began to walk out of the room.

Piper followed her out, still pestering her. "Well, is it?"

x x x

Leo entered the Elders' chamber. "I don't think this is the greatest idea y'all have had," Leo told them.

"Silence, Leonardo. We know of your concerns and we know of the reactions that the Charmed Ones will probably have, but this is a must. You don't understand what this man has been through because of us. We're bringing him back and there is nothing you can do."

"I understand that, Abraham, but I'd like to know what he's been through. Come on, if he's this important you should give him a whitelighter... even though... he'll... be one. What is the deal with Cole? I want to know. I'll accept his case, please, tell me... show me," Leo rebuked.

Abraham cleared his throat. He signaled for Leo to take a step forward and look in through something that, from the side looked like a table, but from a view of the top, was a window that could allow one to look through and see a life as it is now or as it was. Leo took a deep breath and saw the life of a man whom he used to work along side. A man whom he had also fought against. A man whom had even tried to kill him. A man who was not a man at all. Cole.

x x x

Phoebe sat all alone at her desk. She was exhausted. Her phone kept ringing, but she didn't want to answer it. Instead, she buried herself into her advice column. It had to be finished in one hour and she still had a lot more space to fill. What was she going to do? Every time she'd finally get enough energy to write a reply to a fan, the question she picked up would be about love and her mind would instantly wander to Cole. She wanted to get him completely out of her head; she had no idea why she was thinking of him in the first place.

Phoebe had felt bad for the last week or two. For the past month she's been following her gut feeling. It was that which told her to break it off with Jason Dean, her boss at The Bay Mirror, and it was that same feeling which made her think of Cole. And it was that same feeling that now told her something huge was about to happen - something that could end the world, or make it better. The only problem was that she didn't know what it was.

She eventually got her column complete. Her timing was perfect, too, because as soon as the printer had finished, Elise entered her office.

"Phoebe, paper?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah, it's right here," Phoebe replied to her boss as she handed her the slightly warm sheet of paper.

Elise skim read her employee's paper as Phoebe waited anxiously to hear her thoughts. Elise looked up with an interested look on her face. "Do you want to talk, Phoebe?" Elise asked.

"About what?" she asked.

"About this column..." she trailed.

"Sure, is it okay?" Phoebe asked her boss.

"Yeah, it's great. All of this advice on love - I can feel that it's coming from your point of view."

Phoebe's muscles tensed. Elise had known that she was breaking up with Jason and knew that she was going to last night. Over the past couple of months, the two had strangely bonded. Elise also knew that she still had conflicts in her love life concerning the man who she never could remember the name, but called him 'Phoebe's Lawyer Husband'. Every time she would call him that, Phoebe would insert 'Ex-'.

"It's nothing, Elise."

"Nothing, huh?" her boss replied. "So tell me, is this about Jason or is it about?"

"Don't say it Elise, please don't say it."

"So it's not Jason, eh. Phoebe, I can't help but think that you're going down a path that I don't want to see you go down."

"I'll be fine," Phoebe replied. "I promise. Just... can we please talk about something else?"

Elise only sighed.

x x x

Paige and Piper sat at a nice restaurant. Both were frustrated. Leo had been gone all day - it was already dinner time - and Phoebe worked from nine to five, but hadn't come home. It was now six thirty and the two sisters had been so hungry that they decided to go out just the two of them to have some sisterly bonding time.

"So do you think the secret is huge or do you think it's... nothing?" Paige asked her older sister whom she looked up to.

"Which secret are we talking about?" Piper replied.

"Good point."

"I just can't stand the fact that my own husband doesn't trust me with a silly little secret, and that my sister - whom I've known... since she was born - continues to hide herself from us day after day after-"

"Day," Paige finished. "But then again, if you're calling it a 'silly little secret', then why do you care so much?"

"Because, Paige," she began. "Leo and I are married. We have a kid together, and he still sometimes seems... bottled up. I know he is open to me, it's just that this job that he has - being a whitelighter - I feel like I'm not a part of that, and I want to be."

"Piper, that's silly. You're one of his four charges, of course you are a part of that."

"Yeah, but what if I'm not. What if..." Piper stopped.

"What if what?" she questioned.

She started her sentence again after Wyatt had finished gurgling in the baby seat in the chair next to her. "What if..."

x x x

"You? You, Elise, did that? You swear!" Phoebe said in between laughs.

"Yes, I did. But I didn't know he was a male prostitute - let alone gay. How was I supposed to know? It's not like they walk around with signs on their backs."

"Yeah, but Elise, you dated him for six months and you never knew he was gay or his line of work. That's psychotic," Phoebe told.

"Well when he said that he did role-play, I thought he was talking about acting or something like that. I didn't know he role-played in gay porno flicks."

"Oh my gosh, Elise. You have to be one of the stupidest people I've ever met!" Phoebe exclaimed.

"Hey! Come on, there are plenty of people who would do the same thing!" Elise said in her defense.

"But six months? And I thought I had a bad taste in men!"

x x x

A single tear ran down the whitelighter's cheek. 'Cole has been through so much,' Leo thought. 'And it could've been prevented if the Elders would've listened to him.'

"Well?" Abraham asked.

"Sir, I fully accept Coleridge Turner, son of Benjamin Coleridge Turner, as my fifth charge, and I also accept any and all responsibility for this man." Leo paused. "But, sir, if I may ask," he again paused to wait for the permission of Abraham to continue. When he was given the signal, he went on. "Why didn't you believe Cole when he told you what happened?"

"We were blinded by hate towards that man. We chose not to believe him because we didn't want to believe him, as true as it was," Abraham replied.

Leo looked at the congregation. "How many of you were Elders at this time?" One by one, nearly all of the Elders slowly and cautiously raised their hand. Leo could only shed another tear. Then: "Why?"

"He was a demon," one piped up in an angry tone.

"He was just a boy!" Leo rebuked in an even angrier voice. "He was nine years old and none of you believed him! For crying out loud, he was just a kid!"

"Exactly! He was just a kid. A boy. A silly little boy. And silly little boys make up silly little stories," another Elder replied in defense.

"Yeah, well, unfortunately, this wasn't a story. It happened. And more horrible things happened because of you all's arrogance. For the first time in my life, I'm ashamed to be known as a whitelighter - as something who takes orders from people like you." There was an awkward silence and Leo continued. "I'm disappointed in all of you. In every single one of you who were Elders at that point. And now look at you. Because you didn't listen to what he said, we have all suffered great loss. We're heading towards the path of Chris's world and I'll be damned if Cole and I are gonna sit back like y'all have been doing for the past millions of years and watch the world disappear into just one more hell dimension. I'm through with sitting back and letting witches and people suffer because we're all too lazy to get in the way. Well let me tell you something, we're going to win this battle. This war. And everyone is going to contribute whether that means that I might die and you all, too. Mark this day, gentlemen. Because this is the day that Elders and whitelighters won't be known as slackers, as a waste of magic; instead, we will-"

"Strike fear into the hearts of evil who even think about trying to come after us."

Leo turned around. Cole was standing against a pillar with his arms folded listening to the whole conversation - well, more like argument. Leo smiled. Cole unfolded his arms and stepped forward. "I want to be a whitelighter. I want to finally be able to call myself 'good'."

As murmurs spread throughout the congregation of Elders, Abraham sat back in his seat and smiled. Both sides had already started to get ready for the last and final battle between good and evil.