Author's note: This is meant as a Christmas tale Charmed fanfic. If you recognize it may be that you have read it on mcmahoniacs (.net) where it is already published. While it takes off moments after the 150:th episode, which took place in Sept. 2005, the main story takes place on Christmas 2006; totally disregarding most (but not all) things happening in the second half of season 8.
Be patient, Cole will enter into it.
Edgewood Orphange and Mondrian Hotel actually exists - I hope they don't mind if I borrow their good names.
In case someone thinks the Winter Queen has anything to do with the White Witch of Narnia - she doesn't! It's just one of those basic fairytale characters.
Are you ready?
Okay then... Hold on!
"Now Dasher, now Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen! On Comet, on Cupid! On Donner and Blitzen!"
When You Wish Upon A Star / C. Hansen
PROLOGUE NO.1
Cole leaned on the banister of the Golden Gate Bridge and wished for sleep; deep, dreamless sleep.
I could use some oblivion.
But it seemed he was to be denied everything – even death.
Half demon, half human, half dead… Seems I'm destined to be nothing but half of anything ever.
Fingers interlaced, he leaned on his forearms, letting the sea-breeze touch his face, and wondered if Piper had noticed his lapse. While she couldn't do the simplest poltergeist trick, he had picked up the framed photo of Phoebe just like that. It was a mistake, he admitted, but the need to look at Phoebe made him forget himself. He hadn't lied to Piper, but he hadn't told the entire truth either; because there was simply no point in her knowing what he could and could not do.
Sometimes he wished he wasn't so painfully aware of his limitations. Contrary to what he first thought, he could move quite freely in any plane – only he couldn't be seen or heard except by other souls in limbo, or people with second sight, like Drake.
Phoebe, being psychic, would be able to see him too if he wasn't careful. It had been tempting, but not an option if he was to succeed.
Phoebe…
God, how he missed her! So much in fact, he hadn't been able to hold back his feelings when she entered the room, and she had felt his presence – almost seen him.
That was another slip up.
His entire plan – so precarious, so carefully built, so easily ruined – to save her from sharing his fate, would have failed miserably if she had found out that he had staged everything. He had been very specific about it to Drake not to reveal him, or his plight, at any cost. He honestly wanted her to move on – even if he condemned himself to an eternity alone in this cosmic void he was trapped in. He simply loved her too much not to.
Still, a glimmer of hope remained to him.
He did have an ulterior motive, just as Piper had suspected; if he could persuade Phoebe not to give up on love, there was the sliver of a chance that she might return the favor and save him. All it really took to break the curse put on him was that someone admitted that she loved him with all her heart. However, if he told anyone about that, that chance would be null and void. In addition, the chance that Phoebe would let him back into her heart was less than remote, but it was still a chance if she kept looking for love.
And if she didn't save him?
Then he had won anyway, and his comfort for the rest of eternity would be that he had given Phoebe back the gift of love – and he would always have the hope.
We hurt each other a lot, but I still love you, Phoebe, and I will always love you. Nothing can change that.
Taking a deep, shivering breath of the salty, fresh sea air, Cole pushed away from the railing and faded out of existence.
PROLOGUE NO.2
The first rays of the morning sun found their way through the window of the Halliwell manor and into the bedroom, but the two people in the bed had already been awake for some time; prying away a few precious moments to themselves before the children woke up.
"When are you going to tell Phoebe?" Leo asked.
"I'm not," Piper confessed, avoiding his look. "Please don't tell me to, Leo."
"Why? Don't you think she deserves to know?"
Piper was still for a moment and then she shook her head. "I think she deserves her peace of mind. Even Cole recognizes that. She's just begun to move on, Leo, and with Drake dead she has yet another loss to cope with – I can't tell her that Cole is…"
"Alive?"
"Around," she decided. "Can you imagine what it would do to her? Knowing he was here, that he has been watching her ever since… She would freak out."
"And we are certain it was Cole?"
"Tall, dark and snarky? Comes back from the dead to save Phoebe? Oh yes!" Piper nodded vigorously. "That was Cole, no doubt about it. For a moment, I thought it was Barbas who had come back to mess with my mind, but… No, that was Cole. Not The Source Cole, or even crazy Cole… Just Cole." Cole rescuing Phoebe, she thought. Rescuing us – again – when he had all the reasons in the world not to. Except…
Piper turned onto her side and snuggled up against her husband's naked shoulder. "God, Leo, you should have seen him when he spoke about her, the way he looked at her." She shook her head again – this time in incredulity. "Y'know what he told me? 'Love transcends every plane of existence. All you need to do is believe in it with every fiber of your being, and just send it out…' No wonder Phoebe sensed his presence in the room. I could feel the love and yearning that radiated from him at that moment."
Oh, he tried to be all smirks and suave about it, but he hadn't been able to hide his heartache and pain from her. It shone through in his eyes and voice like a beacon.
Leo raised both eyebrows. "She sensed him, and you still don't think we should let her know?"
"It's exactly why I don't want her to know. Phoebe's vulnerable right now. She says she fell a little in love with Drake, but I think she fell in love with the memory of being in love."
"Which is what he wanted, I believe."
"I was going to say "being in love with Cole". Drake must have reminded her of Cole when he wasn't evil."
"You're afraid she is still in love with him?"
Piper heaved a sigh. "Somewhere deep inside I don't think she ever stopped loving him. And if she finds out this… Look, I just don't think it's fair for either of them. It's not what Cole wanted either. He wanted her to find love and dare to hold on to it. If she thinks Cole is within her reach… I don't know what that would do to her."
"I know." Leo let his fingers trace the outline of her arm. "What if she asks you?"
"I hope she doesn't," Piper murmured. "I don't want to lie to my sisters."
"Look, this is your call, Piper. Obviously, I'm not going to argue about it with you, but…"
Piper rolled up her eyes. "Obviously."
From the bassinet came the unmistakable noises of baby Chris waking up and Piper pushed out of the bed to go to her son.
Turning on his side, supporting his head on a hand, Leo watched his wife shrug into her morning robe, and wondered what he had done to deserve to be so happy – and what any one had to do to deserve some love and happiness. "I would like to think we came out of this having learnt something."
"I thought you quit being a Whitelighter." Irked, Piper bent over Chris to pick him up. "Personally, I am sick and tired of all these lessons. Can't we just say we won this one and leave it at that?"
"But how did we win?"
"Love conquers all?" Having checked the diaper, Piper arranged the pillows behind her back to give her youngest son breakfast. "You were on your way home. If Odin hadn't interfered…"
"True," Leo admitted. "But Odin did interfere. He was dealing from the bottom of the deck and if Cole hadn't helped us, I would be up there right now with no memory of either you or this little guy." With a tender look, he reached out to touch his son.
"Your point being?"
"My point being that when we are faced with a choice, our hearts tend to lead us in the direction of our destiny. But we are just as easily lead astray by people who want to make these choices for us – for whatever reason. Are we any better than Odin when we make this choice for Phoebe?"
"For God's sake, Leo!" Piper burst out, upsetting Chris. "She's my sister! I can't…"
"You can't choose her life or destiny, Piper. Nor do you know that she will be happier with your choice than her own. Maybe she will make the same choice, but it must still be her choice. You owe it to her, and you owe it to Cole."
"To Cole?" Piper gave her husband a baffled look. "All he did to us, and we owe him?"
"Cole did a lot of bad, but he saved us a lot of times too – not just last week. Remember back on our wedding day? If Cole hadn't gone out on a limb to find that killer, there would have been no wedding. He took back his powers from Barbas, knowing as he did that it probably would damn him in Phoebe's eyes. And when Shax came after you, and you were shot dead, it was Cole who saved us from The Source and the Underworld."
Piper grimaced. "I'm glad I have no recollection of that one. But I guess you have a point." Chris fidgeted and she moved him to her other breast. "I'll tell her if she asks me," she decided after some thought.
When you wish upon a star…
When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you
If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do
Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing
Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true!
From Pinocchio – Disney
Chapter 1
The beautiful, dark-haired woman watched the ice mirror with rapt attention, and a smile of self-satisfaction formed on her lips as she saw how the plan she had worked on for more than a century, finally unfolded into its last stage.
'Patience,' she thought. 'That is how you win battles against Good.'
It was not something demons had in abundance, but she was the Winter Queen, and her patience was that of the age-old glaciers and eternal snows. She was the Fimbul winter that would fall upon the mortals and their world.
"Humans are such fools," she smirked, her long-nailed fingers resting on the shaggy head of the large, white wolf sitting next to her throne. "They think 'eternal winter' means a lot of snow and cold weather." She cocked her head to the side and laughed a soft laugh that tinkled like icicles. "Well, they are right about the cold 'climate'."
Still laughing to herself, she rose from the thick polar bear furs on her ice-carved throne and glided down the dais, her long, ice-green, silk robes rustling softly as she moved. The wolves raised their heads, awaiting her orders.
"Grim and Fang!"
Two of the creatures immediately left their resting place and came up to her. The Winter Queen caressed their heads and stroked the silvery fur on their strong backs. "I think the time is ripe. Go, and bring him to me! Take your best warriors! He will come with you without a fight, but his pesky elves might try to stop you. In any case, I want the others to stand by for later."
The two wolves looked up at their mistress and their blue eyes flared; then they trotted off over the icy floor and out through the white portals silently opening for them. Five other wolves rose and followed them to lope away into the snowy night.
The Winter Queen turned back to her mirror and smiled contentedly at what it showed her. "I almost forgot. I have some Christmas invitations to send out." And she threw back her midwinter black hair and laughed her icicle laugh.
"Okay, it's official. I give up!" Piper threw the receiver down and her arms up. "The Christmas party is off."
"What!?" Phoebe almost fell off the ladder she used to get the decorations up over the bar. "You can't be serious!"
"The guy at city council didn't sound like he was joking."
"But I almost finished all of these." Paige waved a coaster with half a name written on it. Forty-eight handwritten, name cards were stacked on the counter. "My fingers are cramping up."
Fastening the garland hurriedly, Phoebe climbed down. "But what's happened?"
"Well, the deal was that P3 would host a Christmas party for the kids at the Orphanage, the city would supply busses to drive them here, and a catering firm would supply the food. Right? Only, the catering firm called me this morning to say they got another, far more lucrative deal, and couldn't do both."
"Yeah, but we said we would do the food bit ourselves, didn't we."
"And I would have been happy to, but an hour ago Tommy at Edgewood called too, telling me the busses are off because the drivers are on strike. I have been on the phone since then, just trying to get hold of whoever's responsible."
"And?"
"And he turns out to be a real jerk." Piper sank down on a stool and rubbed her face. "I can fix food for 50 hungry kids, but I can't… Whatever happened to the Christmas spirit?"
Phoebe and Paige exchanged concerned looks.
"Would a little magic be out of the question?" Paige ventured. "I mean it's certainly not like it's for personal gain."
The oldest Halliwell sighed. "But it's not a demonic matter. We just have to settle for whatever Christmas we can have ourselves."
"Oh, oh, I know," Phoebe enthused. "Let's have one like when we were kids. Just the family, with an open fire, eggnog, and Santa Claus coming down the chimney." She smiled fondly at the memory of Christmases past. "Do you remember when Prue tried to pull his beard off?"
"Yeah, and when Grams was furious with him for taking us up on the roof to pet the reindeer. And you drove everyone crazy singing 'Deck the halls with boughs of Halli' – repeatedly."
Phoebe giggled happily. "Yeah, those were happy days."
"When was the last time we had a traditional Christmas like a normal family?"
"Not since before Grams died."
"Not since you hit puberty."
"Piper!"
"Hey! I was the one who had to spend Christmas Day playing scrabble with Grams while you and Prue were out having fun, so don't you Piper me." Piper settled back and a dreamy smile spread over her face. "An old fashioned, demon-free, family Christmas," she mused. "I guess the boys would like that."
"M-hm, I know I would," Phoebe assured her with conviction.
"Excuse me." Paige was looking from the one to the other. "But when you said Santa, did you mean…?"
"Why, Santa Claus, of course," Piper said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"He really exists, you know," Phoebe assured Paige off her dubious look. "Actually, he is just a physical manifestation of the Spirit of Christmas. That's why he looks different in different countries. Anyway, he used to come by every Christmas when we were kids. Until that incident with the chimney that is."
"I'm almost afraid to ask, but what incident?"
Phoebe couldn't help but giggle. "Grams caught him in a trap she had up the chimney. She must have put it there to safe guard from demons, and forgotten about it."
Piper was laughing a little too. "He wasn't too keen coming around after that, was he?"
"No, but I guess at least Prue was getting old enough to realize that our visit from Santa differed from other kids', and Grams didn't really want us to know about the world of Magic anyway. Strange how I had forgotten all about that until right now." A thoughtful frown creased her brow. "Or not forgotten – I just thought it was, you know, dreams… kids making stuff up. I didn't even believe in Santa again until long after we became witches."
"Me neither. Grams did a good job." Piper looked around at the half-decorated club. "So what do we do about all this?"
"Well," Paige offered. "I will not have spent all this work in vain, so I will go over to the bus depot and see if I can't charm the bus drivers into a good deed this close to Christmas."
"Okay, good idea," Piper agreed. "But no magic!"
"No magic," Paige promised and hurried up the stairs. "Just my natural charms."
"You know, her 'natural charms' could mean a lot more if anyone else was saying it," Phoebe observed.
"Yeah, well let's hope that they will work, because this doesn't look too good."
"Oh, cheer up, Piper!" Phoebe gave her a sisterly hug. "The decorations are all but done. Of course there will be a party. If there are decorations, there must be a party."
Barely had the words left her mouth, before the garland began to detach itself and float lazily to the floor.
"Nononono!" Phoebe tried to catch it, but one after one, the boughs rippled loose, and soon the entire sling was on the floor. "Oh, no. I spent an hour getting that one up."
Piper gave the ruined decoration a perfunctory look. "You were saying?"
The traffic was thick and impatient – more so since very few busses were to be found and more people had to resort to their cars. Drivers honked their horns, revved the engines, and drove in a generally irritated way. Only inches from getting a dent in her car on several occasions, Paige arrived at the bus depot in a slightly disheveled state.
The bus drivers were indeed on strike. Outside, someone was handing out flyers and the busses had been parked so that no one could drive either in or out. With sinking heart, Paige tried to put on her sweetest smile, and walked up to the flyer-guy. "Hi, I'm looking for someone who's in charge of the strike."
The man gave her a suspicious look. "Are you from the city or the union?"
"Eh, neither. I'm from P3. The club? I'm here to ask about the busses that were to pick up the kids from Edgewood Orphanage on Christmas Eve."
"Christmas Eve, eh?" The man wiggled his eyebrows as if she had said something funny.
Paige gave him a brave smile. "That was the deal."
"Well, then the deal is off."
"That's why I want to talk to someone in charge? Am I to assume that someone is you?"
The man gazed down at her, obviously contemplating telling her that he was, but seemed to think better of it. "That would be Ralph. You can find him inside." He waved a thumb over his shoulder. "But he will tell you the same thing."
"Yeah, well, I'll take my chances. Thank you." Hearing him chuckle as she passed, Paige walked through the gates to the parking lot and up to the office beyond. The sound of muttering voices and the smell of coffee led her to a lunchroom where a dozen bus drivers lounged. The room fell silent as she walked in.
"Now what have we got here?" one of them said and clicked his tongue in an appreciative way that Paige didn't appreciate at all.
"Hi, I'm…"
"If you're from the city, you can turn around now."
"No, I'm n…"
"Maybe the Union sent us some entertainment," someone in the back smirked.
"Put a sock in it, Don!" A dark skinned man, holding the largest pastry Paige had ever seen, walked over to her. "Who are you, Miss?"
"I'm Paige Matthews and I'm here about the deal to provide busses for the kids from the Orphanage on Sunday. Are you Ralph?"
The man nodded consent. "Now what deal would that be?"
"You mean you don't know?"
"Humor me."
There was some chuckle in the room and Paige was getting even more annoyed and unnerved. "It's for the orphans' Christmas party at P3. The city promised to supply busses..."
"Yeah, well, see, the city also promised to pay us extra for working the holidays."
"And a couple of extra temps to fill in for those who wanted to be home for the holidays," someone else chimed in.
"But instead," a woman said sharply, "they have pulled all vacations and told us we have to work extra hours … without extra pay."
"What?" Paige frowned. "Why would they do that?"
Ralph gestured with his pastry. "That's what we are asking too."
"Look, I don't blame you for going on strike, but surely you can't let that stand in the way for doing something really good for Christmas? These kids have no families and they have been looking forward to this for weeks."
"Well, I do have a family," the woman who had spoken before said. "And kids who have been looking forward to Christmas as well. They'll get damn disappointed too if I have to work the entire holiday."
"Okay, I get that, but these kids don't have anything. They don't even have moms or dads to be disappointed in. And now you are going to disappoint them a lot more than your kids are ever going to be, because this is all the Christmas they get."
"Look, lady," Ralph said. "We'd like to help you, but it's not like missing out on a party is going to kill them. We're on strike here."
"Well, is taking a break for a good cause, going to kill you?" A stony silence met her from the people in the room. "Okay, what if I can find someone who can drive a bus; could we at least borrow the busses?"
If possible, the silence grew even stonier.
"I think you better leave now, Miss," Ralph said.
Paige tried to stand her ground. "Don't you care at all? What about acting in the spirit of Christmas?"
"Christmas spirit only exists in sappy movies. This is the real world, sweetheart, and nobody cares about Christmas anymore, so take your goodie-two-shoes attitude out of here and scamper back home."
Feeling snubbed, Paige looked at them. "I would wish you a merry Christmas," she said. "But I can see how that would be a complete waste of words." She turned to leave, pausing momentarily in the doorway before she stepped out.
For no apparent reason, the large pastry left Ralph's hand and splashed onto his face.
"I guess there's no way but to cancel the whole thing then," Piper said as she put the teapot down on the table.
"But we can't," Paige objected. "The kids at the Orphanage…"
"We know, honey." Phoebe gave her a sympathetic look. "But you just said you spent the entire afternoon without finding anyone who could drive them. We can't swing it on our own."
Paige nodded glumly. "I don't know what's up with people. I asked everywhere and everyone I could think of. I even went to City Hall to guilt them into keeping their deal, but that was a complete waste of time."
"Told you so." Piper took a sip of her tea.
"So can we use Magic now?"
"No."
"Come on, Piper! You know how much this means to me. Edgewood was like my second home after mom and dad died."
Phoebe looked up from her evening paper. "I thought you moved in with an aunt and uncle or something."
"Yeah, I did. But Edgewood took care of me while they made arrangements, and they kept in touch even after I had moved out to go to college, so they're like a second family to me. I really wanted to do this for them."
Piper arched an eyebrow. "You wanted to do something, so I get to host a party?"
Paige blushed. "Well, I…I…thought…you didn't mind."
"Of course I don't mind, silly. I'm just kidding."
Relieved, Paige rolled up her eyes at her, and Piper grinned. Then she grew serious again and took a long, thoughtful sip of her tea. "We still have to figure out what to do with the gifts people have donated to the kids now that no Santa will come and hand them out."
"Um, I don't think we have to worry too much about that," Phoebe said from behind the paper. "We can just carry it back up to the attic."
"What?"
"Well, aside from a teddy bear in bad need of some stitching and stuffing, all we've got is the stuff we donated ourselves."
"You can't be serious," Paige burst out. "When did we cancel on Christmas in this city?"
"Maybe Christmas has canceled on us," Phoebe suggested. "Says here that they have never received so little money in the donation boxes like they have this year, and the soup kitchens and hostels are without volunteers to help out over the holidays."
"Okay, this can't be right. Isn't there something we should do?"
"We tried," Piper reminded her. "Look what happened to that."
"So am I the only one thinking some demon could be behind all of this?"
"Who? The Grinch?" Phoebe grinned at her own suggestion. "I'm afraid this is just people for you, Paige. Sometimes demons don't have to do anything at all – they can just sit back and enjoy the ride."
"But what if the Spirit of Christmas has been killed or something?"
"Okay, no, see that's not possible, Paige. He's like from the beginning of time and part of the balance that must be kept. You just don't kill him – it's against the rules."
"Would that be the same rules that say no one can kidnap or kill Wyatt?" Paige asked, rolling up her eyes. "Because we all know how well they are working."
"No, these rules are much older." Phoebe put away her paper. "'Santa' of today is just this mix of half-legends like St Nickolaus and Kriss Kringle. The Spirit of Christmas is so much more than a jolly, old man, handing out gifts. He's an integral part of the entire solstice myth – he's the essence of Good magic. "
"Will you please refrain from repeating that when Wyatt is around?" Piper said. "The little guy has had enough disappointments to last him a lifetime already."
"Okay." Paige shrugged. "But my instincts are telling me something's not right, and they are seldom wrong."
"Maybe he was attacked by a Demon of Amnesia," Phoebe suggested, batting her eyelids – and got hit by a pillow.
"Okay, that's it!" Piper decided, hastily trying to salvage the tea cups. "No more demon talk before Twelfth Night. We are officially off duty and I, for one, am going to have a nice, quiet Christmas…"
The door slammed open and Wyatt stormed inside. "Mummy! Look what we got!"
"We got wet and dirty shoes," Piper admonished with a laugh and hurried to catch her little boy before he could climb onto the couch. "What have you and daddy been up to?"
"We got a tree." Opening both doors to make room, Leo wrestled the evergreen inside and almost swiped down the phone from its table as the tree unfolded its boughs. "I almost had to wrestle two other guys to keep it. People are behaving like crazy out there. How do you like it?"
Joining Piper in the foyer, the two younger Halliwell sisters gave the Christmas tree a good look. It was tall enough to almost touch the ceiling and had an even distribution of thick boughs covered in green needles, smelling wonderfully of turpentine.
Paige wrinkled her nose. "It's a little thin, isn't it?" she said, nudging Phoebe with an elbow.
"Oh, absolutely," Phoebe quickly agreed. "Not nearly tall enough either."
Seeing her husband's proud smile fade, Piper grimaced at her sisters and went to kiss him. "Pay no attention to the Jezebels. It's perfect! And we are going to have a perfect Christmas this year."