Binding Ties

A/N: Quotes in this chapter are from episodes 1x06, “The Wedding from Hell” and 2x18, “Chick Flick“. All are the property of Aaron Spelling, et al. Rosemary’s Baby, incidentally, is the property of Paramount Pictures.

Cole left the cavern before Prue had a chance to reply. She couldn’t form a coherent response if she wanted to, however. Her hands balled into fists, and she beat them against the wall behind her for several moments. Somehow, it wasn’t as satisfying as beating up the Source, or better yet, vanquishing him, but she needed to do something. Anything to avoid the thought of what she had gotten herself into.

Slowly she stopped, drained of what little strength she had. The choice she made stared

her in the face, as real as the stone surrounding her. One sister’s life and happiness for another’s. Prue shook her head. She really had believed her decision to come to the Underworld had been for the best. Now she didn’t know what to think.

A few more minutes passed. Then, through the cavern’s entrance, Prue began to hear footsteps and rhythmic chanting. The sound grew louder as the procession got closer to the cave, and Prue could make out bits of the demonic chant. Videre videnda,

Cave Hecate, Vae Victis. She translated mentally, “See what should be seen, beware Hecate, woe to the conquered.” Beware Hecate. Prue closed her eyes as memories nearly three years old came back to her. The Spencer wedding. The fertility icon, the dagger and its inscription, her own research, and Piper telling them about the murdered priest who had shouted “She is the bearer of the demon child, beware Hecate!” Prue slumped against the cave wall. The demons were chanting about her and the fulfillment of the prophecy.

She closed her eyes in despair, but that brought no relief. Instead she remembered when Phoebe told her about the premonition she had had before the Spencer wedding, and her own knee-jerk reaction.

“And in this vision a …thing was being born. So, I started to think back, oh, six, eight weeks ago…”

“Oh my god, you’re pregnant … that’s why you came back from New York, isn’t it?”

“No. But I shouldn’t be surprised that you would think that. After all, I am the irresponsible sister, the black sheep who always screws up, the dark cloud over the Halliwell household.”

“Think about it Prue, because it wasn’t me in that vision having the demon child….”

Prue made a half-hearted attempt to convince herself that back then Phoebe tended to jump to conclusions with the limited information her premonitions provided. After all, hadn’t she initially thought the woman in the vision was Piper? And besides, the demon posing as “Jade DeMone” had been vanquished. But the nagging thought persisted: what if? Phoebe admitted she never saw the woman’s face.

The irony of the situation almost overwhelmed her. If Phoebe could see you now, Prue told herself, she’d call you a hypocrite. Not just based on the similarity with that one incident, of course. Countless times both before and after they’d become the Charmed Ones, Prue had asked for her sisters’ trust and support. They had often been reluctant to give it, but in the end they had, almost every time.

But there had been plenty of times when she hadn’t completely given them the same trust. Part of her could admit that to herself--heck, part of her had once, aloud. Especially with Phoebe, she had always been a bit more protective. That had only become more true when Cole Turner entered their lives. The role of little mother hen might have been forced on her by circumstances and her grandmother, but she had mostly accepted it because she loved her sisters. She loved them so much it hurt, sometimes. Like it had when Phoebe had decided all on her own to go back to college, and like it did now, as the significance of betraying her this way hit home.

Bile rose up in Prue’s throat. She was going have to sleep with Cole Turner and have his demonic child. A demonic child that could very well be unvanquishable, even by the Power of Three, if the Source’s judgment of its power held true. She didn’t know at this point which part was worse, and she was usually the one who had made these judgment calls. The acid kept coming up, and she quickly doubled over.

A few dry heaves, and then a spurt of acid poured out of her mouth onto the stone floor. She retched again, but nothing else came. Prue took a few deep breaths. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and straightened up. Then she heard a muffled sound from the entrance to the cave. There stood Cole, watching her with an unreadable expression on his face.

“The Source was pleased you agreed, of course,” he began. “He expressed amusement at your insistence about the bargain, but I’m supposed to remind you that it isn’t necessary for him to target your sisters now that the plan will go forward, so he won’t.”

Despite her discomfort with what Cole might have seen, Prue couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows. “Like that’s supposed to be reassuring.”

He shrugged. “Take it or leave it.” They looked at each other for a moment. Cole looked away first, his eyes drawn down to the small pool of acid. “I guess you weren’t kidding during that run-in with the Seeker demons. Tell me something, Prue. Am I really that repulsive to you?”

“What is repulsive to me,” she told him through clenched teeth, “is betraying Phoebe. Do you remember her at all? The witch you fell in love with, who also happens to be my sister?”

He nodded. “Yes, I do. But that doesn’t change the fact that I have been loyal to the Source and the brotherhood for a hundred years, Prue. Or that it would have been next to impossible for me to live powerless among witches. Raynor and the others helped me to fully understand that.” She looked at him, a little astonished. He smiled wryly at her. “Oh, I know what Phoebe came here to do. I also know it wouldn’t have worked. As it is, she’s lucky you found her before the brotherhood did. But like I told you once before, that’s now in the past.”

“The past?” she echoed incredulously.

“Yes,” he replied. “We need to focus on the present right now, especially letting you get cleaned up and finding something to eat.”

Prue started to say something to that, but her stomach was completely empty, and she had been in the same clothes for longer than she wanted to remember. “Fine,” she told him.

He led her out of the cavern and through the main corridor she’d heard the procession pass through, before they took a sharp left and went along a narrow passageway. Finally they stopped at a very old wooden door. Cole took out another set of keys and unlocked it. But before he pushed it open he turned to her and said, “Everything behind this door is the result of a spell or a charm. Treat anything you see like the real thing, just remember that.”

She nodded, and they entered the chamber. It looked like a penthouse suite, Prue thought immediately. Persian carpets ran into a living area, where two loveseats and two full sized sofas boxed in a glass and wrought iron coffee table. Without another glance at Cole, she walked further into the room. He followed a few steps behind.

“Bathroom’s through there. A change of clothes should be with the towels.” He pointed to a door on their right. “The kitchen is through here.” He indicated around a corner to their left. “I’ll see what I can find in there. Probably sandwiches will be best.”

Prue nodded toward the door along the wall opposite where they stood. “I’m guessing that leads to the…”

“Bedroom,” he finished. They stood looking at each other a moment, before Prue abruptly headed into the bathroom. Cole suppressed a small smile. Then he went into the kitchen.

She didn’t even pause to look at herself in the full length mirror or examine the full complement of beauty products. Off went every dusty, dried-blood and vomit-covered piece of clothing. The water felt wonderful when she stepped under it. For two seconds, Prue considered simply keeping her mouth open under the showerhead. At least Barbas had been good for something, she told herself. There would be no betrayal of Phoebe. No actual cooperation with the Source’s plot. She’d get to see her mother, Grams, and Andy again. But then she remembered what the consequences would be for the little sister she had never actually met. She still had to prevent the Source from getting to that girl. So she emerged ten minutes later, clean, resolved, and with significantly shorter hair. Long term residence in the Underworld, Prue had decided, probably demanded a lower maintence style.

Cole had set a table for two in a small alcove off the kitchen with sandwiches and a Caesar salad. Prue also noted that a wine glass beside her plate appeared to be filled already. “Ah,” Cole declared when he walked into the alcove. “Your hair.”

“Is now as short as it was before my sisters and I had ever heard of you,” she replied tartly. They sat down. Cole served them both salad, and they ate in silence for several minutes.

“You never directly answered my question,” he finally commented. She looked up sharply.

“Phoebe --” she started to remind him.

“Believes that we are both lost to her. She will have no idea.”

She sighed in exasperation, and perhaps a bit of desperation. “You just don’t get it, do you? I will know, and that matters to me.”

“Yet here you still are,” he told her. “So for the sake of argument, just pretend Phoebe isn’t a factor.”

“Fine.” She pointed her fork at her wine glass. “If that is what I think it is, then you are that repulsive to me, Cole, and your boss too, even more than usual.”

He shook his head, chuckling softly. “It’s a re-hydration potion, Prue. You really are too suspicious for your own good sometimes.”

She glared at him, but the reminder that she was dehydrated served to make her pick up the glass, sniff the liquid, and take a small sip. Then she took another. In a minute she had drained the glass.

“Thank you,” she finally said when she set it back down, not looking at him. “I needed that.”

Cole simply nodded. “The Source wants you to remain in excellent health. Which is why I’m going to suggest that you head into the bedroom now. I’ll join you in a bit. First I need to check on something.”

She couldn’t deny that she was tired. The reality of her situation again confronted her. Slowly she made her way into the bedroom. A set of pajamas lay on the queen-sized bed, surprising her only a little, and she put them on. Then she got into the bed and stared at the ceiling. She tried to keep her mind blank, but that was impossible. She thought about Phoebe, Piper, and Leo and the grief she knew must be tearing them apart; she thought about the little sister she never knew, and realized that she didn’t even know the girl’s name. I’m sorry, she thought to each of them. Please know that I never meant to hurt you.

And then, her thoughts shifted again. She heard Andy’s voice in her mind, from the vision she’d had of him before she discovered him dead. “Everything happens for a reason,” he’d reminded her. “Remember, you told me that, Prue.” Tears welled up in her eyes at the memory, and she furiously blinked them away. I wished so many things for us, for you, she thought. I wished we could’ve had kids playing in a yard behind a white picket fence. They would have been so beautiful, Andy. So good and noble, just like you. Please forgive me.

Cole came in about fifteen minutes later, having changed already. He got into the bed beside her. Eyeing the tears which she’d begun to let flow freely down her face, he murmured, “A wise witch I loved very much had a favorite movie. I think we both have to take that movie’s advice.”

She turned toward him. “Kill it Before it Dies,” she muttered.

Cole nodded. He looked toward the ceiling so she couldn’t see the pain in his eyes. “Kill it Before it Dies.”