Thursday: On the Back burner

There was always something else more pressing, and if not, she'd make it up.  Yes, she knew that she had to find a better balance, had to seek something, someone, for herself.  And she wanted to.  But old habits die hard.  She'd started treating it like work, a chore, keeping up appearances.  Everything she was actually good at.  The secret wish that bubbled up that one single time their wiccan lives couldn't be an excuse?  The exception that proved the cauious rule of thumb.   Other people, her sisters, could, should, be freer with their hearts.  She had to carefully set hers aside: other things to do, and better risks to take. 

She stood there in Golden Gate Park, trying to force a mirror to only work one way. "And you had just realized that.  So Vinceres, crushing me to death under the world's emotions, what was that?  Mockery?"

Cole shakes his head. "Besides the mission, it was ... envious hope."  He nodded at the confusion in her eyes.  "I suspected the Underworld was wrong about you, but," and now there is certainty and grief, mirrored, "I hardly dared trust whatever that meant.  And if they were right, the last thing I wanted to do was watch."

She hears and doesn't hear.  "The Source had all that in mind when he sent Shax."   The grief in his eyes confirms it.   Everything Phoebe and Piper -- and others -- had told her for years, but she'd figured could wait.  "Damned either way."

His hold on her hands is tentative, as an answer proceeding a question.  "You still had time."