Racing to find a place for my soul ... Or at least a place that&#39;s less familiar

Cole was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, when he heard Phoebe's voice. He jumped up and ran into the living room. "Phoebe? What's wrong?" he said, not immediately realizing that it was a surprise to hear her voice after the past few days.

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She tackle-hugged him, laughing.

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Anders, a towel wrapped around his waist, emerged from the shower shortly afterward, also looking slightly confused. "Is that . . . what's going on?"

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Cole blinked at Phoebe as she hugged him. "You can talk!" he said, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her into the air. He looked over at Anders. "She can talk!"

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She grinned, looking down at him from where he was holding her. "Aziraphale fixed it!"

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"Thank frak!" exulted Anders, crossing the room toward them. "I might've been about to do something drastic."

Which he had plans to do, yes. Not that he was mentioning them in front of her.

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Cole gently set Phoebe down. "Remind me to thank Aziraphale," he said gruffly.

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Phoebe kissed him and then turned to hug and kiss Anders, too. Looking back at Cole -- she still had her arm around him -- she smiled. "He really was quite pissed when he heard the details of what's been going on up here."

No, she wasn't going to mention that if Cole did use fire on Umbridge that Aziraphale wanted to be there to watch.

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Anders wrapped an arm around Phoebe and held on after he kissed her, smiling and completely unmindful of the water dripping into his eyes from his still-wet (and yet, somehow, still-messy) hair.

"She frakked with you. 'course he was pissed," he said, in the tone of voice that meant he thought it should've been really obvious.

If there was going to be using fire on Umbridge, Anders was going to be getting it on film.

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"We really gotta do something about that bitch," Cole growled. "She called Bridge in this morning, didn't she?"

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Phoebe paled. "I'll kill her myself if she does anything to Bridge. Messing with the empaths and witches here... oh hell no."

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"I swear to frak," Anders growled (because Bel was rubbing off on him), "if she does anything to anyone else I care about . . . you might not beat me to doing that."

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"Can't I just fireball her?" Cole said. "Please?"

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Phoebe shook her head. "No, Cole. She may throw you off the island and you are one of the few people here that can protect the other students and maybe the teachers as well without getting hurt."

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Anders set his jaw and looked stubbornly at Bel. "Trust me, if she hurts you, after messing with Phoebe and Bridge? I'm gonna go postal. You really want that?"

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"She can't kick me off the island if she's a pile of ashes," Bel grumbled. Old habits died hard, and sometimes violence seemed like the best answer.

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She looked at him. "And if you did that before she does something that deserves that... what happens to your soul, love?"

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Anders hadn't thought of that, and he winced. "And there's that to worry about, too." He sighed and slumped against Bel slightly. "I hate this, I swear."

Stupid lack of magical abilities.

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"But she's clearly evil!" Bel protested. "She needs to be vanquished."

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"She's also... unfortunately... human." She shook her head. "And believe me, Aziraphale agrees with you, love. But she's an evil human."

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"Stupid loopholes," muttered Anders, still looking sulky.

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"What if Angel says it's okay?" Bel said sulkily. "I'm sure he'd have no problem with it."

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Phoebe actually took a moment to think about that.

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"If I'm not allowed to help, you're not allowed to do it," Anders insisted, lower lip sticking out juuuuuuuuust a bit.

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