Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Charmed.

Chapter 1: Sensing a Presence

The power was exhilarating.

In her current state of mind, Phoebe Halliwell could think of almost nothing else. As far as she was concerned, having the power of a warlock was close to having the power to move hell and earth. In fact, it was the power to bring hell on earth. She and her sisters had spent too long saving people who would never be grateful for everything they'd sacrificed for the cause. What had they gained in all that? No social life and no recognition. Now, all of that was about to change. They just needed to find their oldest sister, and the world would be theirs for the taking.

But first, she needed to change. Hence the reason she was going into her room instead of looking for her older sister. But she didn't even have the chance to start taking her clothes off before she was interrupted.

"Phoebe," a deliciously familiar voice called from behind her. Phoebe spun around. There, coming out from behind her door, was her half-demon ex-boyfriend, Cole Turner. Cole looked every part the handsome former ADA—Phoebe knew that many an assistant had swooned at his amazing good looks—but that wasn't all he was. Cole's mother was a demon, and it was through her that he had inherited his demonic half, the much-feared Belthazor. Truth be told, that was the half that Phoebe's current personality ached to see.

"Cole, you're okay!" she exclaimed. Truly, she'd been wondering if she'd see him again after sending him off to look for her sister. Cole had pissed off the entire demonic 'community' when he had turned his back on evil for the love of a witch. Phoebe intended to repay him for that as soon as she was able.

Cole shrugged. His life was no picnic these days, so 'okay' was a subjective term. "Yeah, barely," he replied, thinking of the close call he'd had on the way back.

"Any demons spot you?" Phoebe wanted to know. Cole frowned. She sounded strangely flippant and uncaring, given the conundrum they were in.

"Just one," he replied.

"Oh no." Why did she sound so strange?

"Don't worry," Cole reassured her. "See, he won't be telling anybody anything." Not after what he'd done to him.

Phoebe's reaction worried him. "The big bad Belthazor strikes again," she all but cooed. Cole's worry deepened, and suddenly, it all made sense. The link between the sisters and the book…before, it had only ever worked to their advantage. Now it was being used against them, in the worst way possible. Knowing his words wouldn't make any difference given her current mindset, Cole still felt he had to say them.

"Not anything I'm proud of." And he wasn't. That would have been stranger than her behavior, if he hadn't already made his decision to switch sides weeks ago, when he'd first revealed himself as Belthazor.

Phoebe, as expected, didn't react to his words as Cole wanted her to. "Why not?" she asked. "You should be."

Defending himself wasn't bad, of course. It was just…he did not take nearly as much pleasure in the kill as he would have before. Just went to show how much this human woman had changed him. And now, he wanted to change her. Back into the do-gooder Charmed sister-witch she'd been when she'd saved him.

But before he had any time to think on that, Phoebe decided to act. Without warning, she grabbed his face and kissed him. Cole had to admit to himself that it was intoxicating. Kissing Phoebe was unlike anything else. The taste of danger was always there, and usually it added a little flavor to their love-making. This time, though, it tasted wrong. This time, he was attempting to do the right thing while his lover spiraled off in the wrong direction.

Reluctantly, Cole pushed her away from him, and struggled to get his mind back on track. Prue. Right. "Phoebe," he breathed raggedly. What was that information he'd wanted to pass on? Oh, yes. "If what I found out is true, Prue's in serious trouble. She's been forced to marry a warlock."

Phoebe frowned. "Figures that bitch would steal Piper's thunder."

Cole had to keep reminding himself that it wasn't the normal Phoebe he was talking to, and that her reactions shouldn't be indicative of her true feelings towards her sister. It was unnerving, though, to see evil speaking through Phoebe Halliwell's lips, especially towards one of her sisters. He shook his head. "No, you don't understand. A high level priestess named Dantalian is rumoured to have married them," Cole began, but he was distracted when Phoebe began untying her top. Ignore it, ignore it…easier said than done. He refocused on the task at hand. "And she's got the power to turn Prue evil and turn you evil, too. That's what's happening here."

"So?" Phoebe responded, moving towards him once more. "Isn't that the way you want me?"

And then she kissed him again.

Cole struggled to respond. Once again, he somehow managed to find the strength to separate the two of them, and forced the words out: "No. That is not how I want you to be. It's not how I want us to be. Our only chance is if we're both good."

That was the complete and utter truth. Cole didn't know how good he'd be at being her kind of good, but he would try. By the gods, he would try. If only Phoebe would let him.

She wasn't going to. "Love is love," Phoebe insisted. In her current state of mind, nearly drunk on the exhilarating powers of an evil warlock, she couldn't understand why he didn't think the same. Cole had been raised evil and he loved her. Why couldn't he understand?

Cole shook his head. "There is no such thing as evil love," he asserted as strongly as he possibly could. "It's just gratification, lust."

That was not the response Phoebe was looking for. She wanted Cole to love her, she needed Cole to love her, whether she was good or bad. Only it appeared his good half wasn't capable of doing that. She would have to turn to his other half.

"You know what, Cole? Your human half is kind of preachy. I think I want Belthazor back."

Never, in his entire life, did Cole ever think he'd hear a witch say that, especially not Phoebe. His heart clenched in despair, as her statement proved just how far gone she was. If she went even a few steps further, she might go beyond that point of no return. He couldn't let that happen.

"He's not coming back." If he did, then all would be lost.

"Oh, no?"

And then she hit him. Cole doubled over as Phoebe's knee found its way to his gut. He'd known she could hit hard, but he'd forgotten just how hard she could hit. It felt even worse because he'd never expected an attack to come from her, not after they'd saved each other in the mausoleum and she'd let him go. It was almost the worst betrayal of its kind, only mitigated by the fact that he knew it wasn't really her. Still, that didn't make the physical blows hurt any less. Not wanting to hurt her by defending himself, Cole retreated, trying to block her attacks without instinctively striking back in return. Through the pain, and his own rising anger, he heard the words she was speaking.

"I. Want. Belthazor!"

It was almost as if she'd spoken the magic words. All the frustration, and anger, and fear that had been pent up for the past several months came to the forefront and built on the anger that was building in response to the assault. Against his human will, Cole felt his anger soar—not just at her, but at himself. Because he wasn't strong enough to hold back his reaction. He felt the familiar sensation of his features shifting and rearranging themselves. He grew, gaining several inches that his human half lacked. His mouth rearranged itself as teeth elongated and his finger nails morphed to become demonic claws. His ears stretched backwards, growing points that hadn't been there before. Most noticeably, his hair disappeared and his skin tone changed, going from a normal Caucasian white to a deep red with black stripes on his face and limbs. Thus transformed, Belthazor stood up and glared down at the human female in front of him. She glared back at him, utterly undaunted by his frightening appearance.

Now hidden beneath his alternate persona, Cole smiled. He liked that fire in Phoebe. If only she was using it for good instead of evil.

As was his habit whenever he transformed, Belthazor stretched out his demonic senses to feel the presences of those around him. The middle sister-witch, Piper, was downstairs. Leo, the ever-present Whitelighter, was actually absent for once. Phoebe was right there in front him.

But…

Her presence didn't feel right. Something else was there, not corrupting it, but altering it. It was almost as if another presence was intertwined with hers; not quite a part of hers, but not quite separate, either. It perplexed him, and that uncertainty gave Cole some of the control he needed.

The rest was given to him by a knocking at the door, and the shifting of Piper's presence from downstairs to right outside the door. "Phoebe?" she called. "What are you doing?"

Cole took advantage of the interruption. "Dantalian's coming for your book," he forced out. "You'd better be ready."

And then he shimmered out.

Phoebe stared at the spot he'd been standing, just as Piper came through the door. "What's going on in here?" the middle sister wanted to know.

Phoebe sighed. "Nothing, unfortunately."

XXX

As he shimmered through the different realms, some familiar, some not, Cole reflected on what he had felt at the manor. Phoebe's presence had always felt exciting to him; first because she was a powerful witch and his prey, and then because she was a powerful witch that he happened to be in love with. It was a subtly shifting thing; he knew that she hadn't fully developed her powers yet, and it made sense that her presence would change as she changed. It also made sense that it would change drastically if she switched sides in the fight of good versus evil. Cole was tempted to believe that this was the cause of the anomaly he had detected in her presence, but something held him back from making that assumption.

This was too drastic. Even though she was evil, it wasn't as though another presence should have meshed itself with hers. If anything, that presence would have been bigger, stronger, and darker than what he had detected. But it wasn't. This one was small. If he had to describe it, Cole would say it was more like a steady, glowing ember.

Most confusingly, it was an ember he had never felt before. Cole could remember all the different types of spiritual presences he had detected over his last 116 years of life: normal humans, priests, priestesses, witches, whitelighters, witch doctors., demons, warlocks, seers, the Oracle, the Source, and everything in between. None of them fit the bill. It wasn't a normal emotion for him, but Cole was worried. This presence was totally unlike anything he had detected before.

Or…maybe it wasn't.

With a start, Cole realized that it wasn't totally unlike anything he had ever encountered before. Strange as it may sound, the presence felt ever-so-slightly familiar; that was part of what made it so confusing. 'In some ways,' he thought as he examined the issue much closer, 'it feels a lot like my breed of demon…like my mother or even myself…just weaker.'

But that wasn't all. While this unknown presence did feel oddly like himself, that wasn't all Cole had detected. It also gave echoes of a witch's presence, which was always combined with that of a normal human. That was probably why Cole hadn't detected it at first; it was so closely aligned with Phoebe that it passed right by his notice.

In fact, as much as it felt like himself…it also felt like Phoebe.

The thought made Cole Turner, ex-ADA and current demon-on-the-run Belthazor, stop dead in his tracks.

XXX

High Priestess Dantalian's lair proved ridiculously easy to find. Leo's gift for finding a charge in trouble had failed him, but that was because of one key difference between the Whitelighter and the sisters as they were now. He was good, while the Charmed sisters had been corrupted with evil. Now the two younger Halliwell sisters put their new 'tracking' abilities to use: finding their missing sister so the three of them could rejoice over their new powers together.

One second, they were safely ensconced in the old Manor, and the next, they were standing in a dark room—or was it the ruins of a castle?—that neither of them had ever seen before. Phoebe felt a smile spread across her face. Her new powers rocked!

"Whoa," Piper commented beside her.

Phoebe looked around. "Are we there yet?" Then she spotted her targets. There, laying only feet in front of her, was Prue. She appeared to be resting on a slab of sorts and beside her was a man they'd never seen before. Probably the warlock she was supposedly being forced into marrying. Too bad he wasn't handsome.

The High Priestess Dantalian looked up, annoyed at her work's interruption. Still, though, she was victorious. "Too late," she sneered. "I've got the book."

Phoebe was unimpressed. "Yeah, well, you know, it takes awhile to learn how to use it. Trust us."

Wasn't that the truth! Piper continued her sister's line of thought, as she suggested, "How about, in the meantime, I freeze your head and shatter it?" That sounded perfectly acceptable to her.

Not so to Dantalian. She began to chant. The sisters were powerful, that was true, but… "I may not be powerful enough to fight you yet, but they are." Dantalian gestured to the two prone figures on the slab. Suddenly, they weren't so prone anymore. Prudence Halliwell and Zile rose as one to glare at the other two sisters.

Phoebe started; she hadn't been expecting that. "Whoa, Prue, hey, hi," she greeted, suddenly feeling a little bit nervous. Prue was the most powerful of them all… "You don't look so good."

Dantalian smirked. "Zile, Prue, eliminate them," she ordered.

"Prue, ignore her," Piper pleaded. Evil or not, she really didn't want to fight her older sister. "Come on, come with us," she very nearly begged, "We're your sisters."

That hardly seemed to register with the oldest Halliwell sister. "I'm his wife," she tossed back, "not your sister."

And then Prue did the unthinkable. She used her power on her two younger sisters. Phoebe gasped as she felt herself take flight. She'd been tossed into walls many a time, of course; that went hand-in-hand with fighting demons. Still, though, she'd never been attacked by her sister. And Prue wasn't holding back. Hitting the wall was going to hurt.

Except it didn't. The strangest thing happened. Instead of hitting the wall, Phoebe felt herself fade out of existence for a split second. The world around her changed colors briefly, becoming a blurry black before it re-solidified into itself. Phoebe looked down. Yep, those were her own feet planted firmly on the ground. She hadn't hit the wall after all.

These new warlock powers were really something else.

XXX

Already stopped dead in his tracks, Cole felt himself freeze as a familiar sensation washed over him. He had been trained to remain aware of others' presences, especially those of witches and demons. It was easiest to track other demons of his own kind, as their energy signature was familiar to him. It let him know where they were and what they were doing, and he had come to identify almost every action with a particular sensation.

This particular sensation felt like shimmering.

But it was tied in with Phoebe's. He literally felt her presence shift for a split second, before reappearing where it had been before. This was no warlock blink. In that moment before she had shimmered, Cole had felt the presence tied to hers flare in response to a perceived danger. Phoebe wasn't a demon; the only way she could have shimmered would have been if she had somehow accessed another demon's powers. And that 'demon' felt very like Cole and the woman herself.

Another presence attached to hers—or perhaps within her would be more accurate…a presence that was small…that felt like a witch and a demon…like him and her…and Phoebe's newfound ability to shimmer…

Cole didn't realize he had stopped breathing until all the air left his lungs in an explosive release of shock. His heart was pounding—with what emotion, he didn't know. But he did know one thing—what all of these things meant.

Phoebe was pregnant with his baby.

XXX

The mood in the manor was possibly the lightest it had ever been. Despite feeling majorly off-kilter, Phoebe was smiling. Leo had been restored; apparently vanquishing Zile had broken the sisters' bond with evil and reversed their evil deeds. That didn't change the fact that they had committed those evil deeds, though, and it shook each of the three sisters to their very core.

"It's okay, Phoebe, it wasn't the real you," Leo reassured her when she tried to apologize for killing him. He added, "Or you, Piper."

It was Prue who wisely correct him. "Wasn't it?" she demanded. She shook her head, and continued, "I mean, on some level, it was me. I felt it. They didn't just plant evil inside of me, or us, for that matter. There had to be something there for them to turn to begin with."

Truer words had never been spoken, but…"That doesn't make you evil, Prue," Leo reasoned. "You have to choose to be evil voluntarily."

Something inside of Phoebe settled at that. Evil was a real threat in their lives, and knowing that she hadn't doomed herself to darkness with her actions was one of the greatest reliefs she could experience. Now that she was able to think a little more clearly, as much as she hated to admit it, it had been kind of fun. In a very bad, twisted sort of way.

"Phoebe…" Prue warned. Her sister jumped when she realized she'd voiced that thought out loud.

"Well, it was fun for a while," Phoebe defended. "I mean, to be able to do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted with no consequences."

Piper snorted. "My fiancé being shattered into a gazillion pieces is kind of a consequence," Phoebe's older sister reminded her.

"Thank you," Leo responded courteously. The sisters might have been 'under the influence' but being killed by them still stung a little.

Prue was still speaking. She continued, "Still, I kind of understand what Phoebe is saying."

Phoebe stared at her sister incredulously. "You do?" she couldn't help asking. She and Prue were not known for getting along, and these last few weeks had been especially tough on their rocky relationship.

"Mm-hm."

"Ooh, am I detecting a thaw in our rift?" Phoebe inquired hopefully. She really didn't like being on the outs with her sisters.

By contrast, Prue wasn't quite willing to let her grudge go just yet. "All I'm saying is if evil weren't enticing, why would there be any?" she asked rhetorically. "I mean, you know, to pretend that we're never attracted to it, it's like pretending that it just doesn't exist."

Uh-oh. The words 'attracted' and 'pretending' had come up. That was not a good subject between the oldest and youngest Halliwell sisters.

"Something tells me Cole's name is about to be brought up," Phoebe muttered. And they'd been doing so well, too!

Prue sighed. She definitely hadn't forgiven Phoebe for keeping that particular secret, but she couldn't exactly change it, either. Maintaining the rift between them would only encourage her to keep more secrets. "Look, I definitely do not like the fact that you lied to us about vanquishing him," Prue started out, and then hesitated. "But I have to admit, after taking a trip down the dark side, I sort of understand it a little better. The problem now is that I realized Justin is just so boring."

Okay, there were a few things wrong with that statement. One thing was that Phoebe hadn't been attracted to Cole just because he was exciting, dangerous, and evil. She was attracted to him because he was a good person deep down, and the fact that he was after a century of doing evil deeds just meant he was that much stronger. That said, at least Prue wasn't completely condemning her for everything she'd done. Her admission wasn't quite what Phoebe had been aiming for, but she'd take what she could get.

Leo sighed. "Well, scratch one name off the wedding guest list." One down, too many more to go…

Piper's words, however, shocked him. "Actually, scratch them all. I cave. Our lives are just way too bizarre to have any sort of normal wedding. I don't know what I was thinking," she paused, and then moved to a completely different topic. "Phoebe, by the way, you never mentioned where you got that premonition from."

Oh. That. Phoebe's heart sped up in nervousness. In all the to-do with Dantalian and being evil and all, she'd forgotten to tell them that Cole was back. In fact, she didn't really want to tell them that Cole was back. Not until she'd had the chance to talk to him, anyway.

So she dodged the question as best she could. "Right. Um, you know, something tells me that you wouldn't believe me if I told you anyway. So let's just say I got in touch with my evil side. Something that I will never do again."

XXX

Taken the wrong way, that statement could have been a lie. Phoebe made her way into the mausoleum, fully intending to meet her demonic ex-boyfriend. As soon as she had been able, she'd escaped the Manor and made her way here, to the one place she knew was a safe meeting point. It had occurred to her that Cole might not be here, but Phoebe had quickly discarded the thought. She knew that he would want to meet as soon as possible, and she wasn't wrong. Sure enough, there was Cole standing in the middle of the room, beside his father's crypt. He was watching her expectantly, and Phoebe got the feeling that he'd been waiting for awhile.

Cole cleared his throat, somewhat nervous. This was awkward; last time they had met, they hadn't had to worry about each person's perception of the other (what with Phoebe being evil and all), but now they did. It was unsettling, and made all the more so by the news he had to tell her. So he decided to start small. "How'd it go?"

Phoebe stepped closer, feeling more than a little nervous herself. She thought that Cole might be feeling the same way, and was both grateful and annoyed by his attempt at trivial conversation. "Everything's back to normal again." Except that everything being back to normal again made all her responsibilities come crashing down on her with crushing force.

"Good."

"Yeah, good."

It was only a few seconds, but Cole felt like they passed an eternity in the silence that echoed between them. He could see something he didn't like in her eyes. He just didn't want to accept it.

"It's not enough, is it?" he finally worked up the courage to ask. "What I did doesn't change your mind about us, does it?"

"No," Phoebe whispered. She loved him, she really did, but she also really believed that choosing him could be a disaster. If the Elders had a problem with a witch and a Whitelighter, what would they think of a witch and a demon? Phoebe didn't think she could withstand their wrath when it had almost destroyed her sister. Besides, even she didn't think a relationship between a witch and a demon who had betrayed and tried to kill one another was the best course of action.

Cole could see all of those thoughts running through her head; he had thought them himself. But they couldn't just walk out of each other's lives, not when they now had something physical binding them together. He had to tell Phoebe. She had to know. "Phoebe," he said at last, sounding much calmer than he felt. "There's something I have to tell you."

Phoebe frowned. She had expected him to protest her decision outright, not react as calmly (though not totally calm) as he was now. She was wary of whatever it was he had to tell her. Something told her it wasn't a small matter, either. "What?"

"In your bedroom," Cole began, trying to find his nerve. Since when had speaking become so hard? Since he had found out Phoebe was pregnant with his baby. "I sensed a presence tied in with yours. At first I thought it was just the evil…"

"So?" Phoebe knew that Cole could sense presences. She also knew that being evil would warp her presence to his senses. Why would that disturb him?

Cole finally found the tail end of his courage, and tugged on it. "But it wasn't. It was small…if it had been the evil, it would have been bigger, would have overwhelmed you. It didn't. Instead, it was so closely wrapped in…wrapped up…by yours that I couldn't sense it in my human form."

Phoebe nodded, trying to urge him on. What was he trying to tell her?

"It felt so much like you—but it felt like me too."

At that moment, Phoebe would swear that her heart momentarily stopped. All of a sudden, she knew what he was getting at. But she needed to hear it explicitly spoken aloud. "What?" she whispered.

From the look on her face, the rigid tension in her body, and the tone of her voice, Cole knew that she had understood what he was saying. He plunged onward.

"Phoebe, you're pregnant with our baby."

To say that Phoebe Halliwell was shocked would be an understatement. For her, the moment Cole told her she was pregnant with his baby was the moment the world seemed to stop. Pregnant! But she couldn't be pregnant, she was a witch and he was a half-demon, and, and, and…The very small portion of Phoebe's mind that hadn't been knocked spinning by the news thought back over the last couple of weeks. She realized that she had been feeling kind of under the weather, but she'd written it off as stress. And that really strange way of magical dodging she'd used earlier hadn't been warlock-y in nature after all. Phoebe hadn't blinked out like a warlock…she must have shimmered.

Phoebe didn't even notice she had voiced that last thought aloud, until Cole explained, "Either you tapped into the baby's powers or it was able to act through you."

Neither of them was sure what to make of that. Both of them were still stunned at the idea of a quarter-demon baby. Cole himself had never heard of such a thing, and he had heard of a lot in the last century or so.

"What do you want to do about the baby?" he finally asked. He added, "It belongs to both of us."

It was a question Phoebe did not have an answer to. "I-I don't know," she stammered, backing away. Seeing the distressed look on her face, Cole automatically reached for her and Phoebe frantically shook her head. She couldn't deal with him and their relationship right now. "I need, I need time to think," she gasped, unable to process everything that was going on. "Until I…figure it out…you have to keep your distance. Stay away."

And then she fled. Out of the mausoleum, out of the cemetery, out to the road, into her car, and away from the cause of the most recent upheaval in her life.

Cole was left standing in the middle of his father's resting place, hand still outstretched towards her now-absent form. Slowly, he let his arm drop, knowing he shouldn't be disappointed at her reaction and feeling that exact emotion anyway. Still, there was a spark of hope now, one that Cole had never, ever had before in his very long life. And there was no way in hell he was going to let go of it unless he absolutely had to.

"I'm not giving up on us, Phoebe," Cole whispered into the relative emptiness of the mausoleum. He couldn't, not now, not unless his very existence proved to be the greatest threat to her life.

"And I'm not going away."

XXX

After departing the cemetery, Phoebe did not go home. There was no way she could go home unless she had some kind of definitive proof, one way or the other. She drove right to the nearest drug store and snagged the last available parking spot. The other driver's irritated honk did not matter to her. The only thing that mattered were those innocent-looking, life-changing little tests she aimed to buy with what little money she had to spend.

It was a small store, so it didn't have a wide selection of pregnancy tests but it would suffice. Despite her current need to save money, Phoebe purchased five of the most expensive home pregnancy tests, wracking up a bill of eighty-four dollars and sixty-one cents. She had heard of false-positives, and having multiple tests say the same thing would decrease the possibility that their answers were just that.

As soon as she'd purchased the tests, Phoebe darted into the store's tiny bathroom, other customers be damned. There was no way she could do this at home, so a public restroom it was. She pulled out the pregnancy tests, and looked at the directions. They seemed simple enough. Pee in a cup, place a drop on the test, and wait four to five minutes.

Not wanting to waste any time, Phoebe did her business and followed the directions. She set a timer on her watch. What followed were the longest four and a half minutes of her life. During that time, Phoebe was plagued with worries and anxiety. What if Cole was right? What if she was pregnant? What would she do? What if something else was wrong with her, something Leo couldn't heal? What if, what if, what if…

The watch buzzed, and Phoebe jumped. With her heart in her throat, she silenced the device before reaching for the first pregnancy test. For a moment, she closed her eyes. Then she opened them, and looked at the test.

Two blue lines. Pregnant.

For a moment, Phoebe felt as if a demon had punched her in the gut. Then she snatched up the other tests. Eight blue lines stared up at her. Five out of five. Every single test was telling Phoebe Halliwell, a college student and a single, Charmed sister-witch, that she was pregnant. And with a half-demon's baby, no less.

Knowing no one could hear her, Phoebe whispered, "What am I gonna do?"

Of course, no answer was forthcoming.

Someone knocked, and Phoebe belatedly remembered that she was in a public restroom. She quickly dumped her supplies in the trash, and opened the door to reveal an irate older man. He opened his mouth to berate her for taking such a long time, but Phoebe was gone before he had the chance. Before she even realized what she was doing, she was on the road again, this time with home in mind as her destination.

As she drove, Phoebe once again sifted through her memories of the last several weeks. More specifically, she thought back to when she and Cole had last 'done it.' Phoebe would be the first to admit that her knowledge of pregnancy was limited, but if her calculations were correct, and she was in her first trimester, she didn't have that much more time left in it. Before long, she'd start to show and she wouldn't be able to keep the secret. And she'd kept enough secrets as it was. No matter how much she dreaded telling her family, Phoebe knew that this could not be one of the secrets she kept. She would have to tell them eventually, and it was better to do it today than to put it off any longer.

All too soon, she was pulling up in front Halliwell Manor. For a moment, Phoebe just sat in her car, trying to gather her courage for what she was about to do. When it became clear that she had done as much as she could in that regard, she left the safety that her car represented and into the uncertainty she faced in the Manor. Luckily for her, the rest of her family was seated around the dining room table, sparing her the time it would have taken to go find them. They looked up at her sudden arrival.

Phoebe didn't have to say anything to let them know that she had news to deliver, news that required her attention. Her family took it all in, in a few seconds. Her prolonged absence, her sudden arrival, the tension in her body, and the scared look on her face…oh yeah, she had something big to tell them. And if they were in danger from a supernatural evil, her entrance would have been a whole lot more dramatic so it wasn't that. Besides, Prue and Piper were her sisters. They could tell, intuitively, when a situation was personal, and when it wasn't. This one definitely was.

"Phoebe, what's wrong?" Piper asked in concern.

Phoebe shuffled a bit, and then grabbed a chair to sit down in. If she was sitting down, it would be so much easier to hide behind the table. Also, it meant she wouldn't have to worry about her legs giving out on her like they were threatening to do right now. "Um," she started, "I have something to tell you guys. And I don't think you're going to like it."

She'd meant to deliver the news before she could lose her nerve. But her nerve moved faster than she thought it would, and Phoebe lost it anyway. She hesitated.

Prue's eyes narrowed. "Phoebe," she pressed sternly. Judging by how unsettled she looked, that was probably all it would take to get her little sister to start talking. What other bomb could her sister possibly have to drop on them?

Piper, on the other hand, experienced a powerful flash of insight. She thought back to Phoebe's behavior during the last couple of weeks. Perhaps it was because she knew her sister, perhaps it was her woman's intuition…but she wondered if she might not already know.

"Well?" Prue pressed again. She had very little patience with Phoebe nowadays, and wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.

Phoebe took a deep breath. She knew she couldn't dilly-dally and beat around the bush, or else she'd lose her courage once more and never get it out. One more deep breath…one, two, three…and then she said it.

"I'm pregnant with Cole's baby."

Silence.

Prue was shocked in a way she'd never experienced before. Pregnant! Phoebe was pregnant! With Cole's baby! She didn't know what to say; she was stunned speechless.

Piper took a deep breath. She'd noticed her sister looking a little under the weather, and had assumed it was due to all the stressors in her life. Now, she knew differently. It wasn't all that surprising, really. Phoebe and Cole had been involved for months. It was just he was a half-demon. Didn't biology say that beings who were the product of two different species were infertile?

"You're sure?" she pressed. "I mean, are you absolutely positive? How do you know?"

"Positive," Phoebe nodded. "I…I saw Cole today. He's the one who told me where you were, Prue."

"Wait, wait," Piper interrupted. "He's back?"

Phoebe nodded again. "He helped me save Prue, that's when he sensed the baby. I haven't been with anyone else since I met Cole, so…"

"It has to be his," Prue finished unhappily. Cole might have helped save her, but she'd think about that later. She had finally found her voice, and turned it on her sister. "Phoebe, how could you let this happen?"

"I didn't let it happen!" Phoebe cried, all of her worse fears about her oldest sister's reaction coming true. Piper watched them in concern. "I mean, we used protection, but it just…it just didn't work. It just happened. We didn't plan for it to happen!"

Prue closed her eyes and tried to regain control of her admittedly volatile temper. All else aside, she knew Phoebe could be telling the truth; birth control wasn't 100% effective. And she couldn't hold that particular action against her sister, as it had been taken before any of them had known about Cole's alter ego. But still…

"What do you want to do?" Leo asked quietly. He wasn't entirely calm about this, but his charges needed his guidance right now, no matter how he felt personally.

"You should go to a doctor," Prue spoke up before Phoebe had a chance to. "I mean, can you really trust anything else?"

Piper nodded, seeing the merit in the idea and wondering why Phoebe hadn't done that first. "Cole could be wrong. The tests could be wrong. And you should make sure that nothing is wrong from all the fights we've had."

Great. In all the worrying Phoebe had done, that was one worry she hadn't thought about. Now she did.

"Yeah," she responded slowly, glad to have a course of action presented to her. But then she looked outside. It was dark. Doctors' offices would be closed. "Should I wait until tomorrow? Or go to the ER?"

Piper shook her head; a potentially unnecessary trip to the ER would cost too much. Besides, she had an idea. "Come on," she stood up, motioning for everyone else to do the same. "I know where we can go."

Half an hour later, the entire Halliwell family (all four members, including Leo) found themselves standing inside the empty waiting area of Parkland Urgent Care Clinic. It operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. More importantly, Piper had heard from one of her bartenders that it had an ultrasound machine to assist in diagnosing more seriously ill patients who had not gone to the hospital. That was why she had chosen it; she had just never imagined she would be using it for this reason.

Phoebe walked right up to the front desk. "I think I'm pregnant," she announced for the second time that day. "I already took five pregnancy tests."

"Okay," the receptionist replied, not put off in the least. She knew none of the circumstances. Why these people were here at this hour for this particular reason was none of her business. "Why don't we do a blood test to confirm it—"

"Actually," Phoebe interrupted. She didn't want to waste any more time, and neither did Leo. "I've been hit in the stomach a few times, so I'd like to do an ultrasound to make sure everything's alright."

Of course, the ultrasound had an unusual risk the receptionist couldn't know about. It was quite possible that any demonic abnormalities would make themselves known then, which could be disastrous. Phoebe comforted herself by remembering that Cole was able to appear fully human, and this baby was more human than he was. However, that might mean it was too human to have the power to hide its demonic quarter. That was what Leo was there for, besides moral support. If worst came to worst, he would use the dreaded memory dusty…and they would be on their own figuring something else out. Hopefully a magical abortion wouldn't be necessary.

The receptionist immediately understood the potential gravity of the situation—what she knew of it anyway. "Why don't you fill this form out here," she shoved a clipboard into Phoebe's hand, "and I'll tell the doctor and ultrasound tech."

She hurried away.

Phoebe looked down at the form in her hands. It was all fairly straightforward—but that wasn't what she was thinking about. "Leo," she whispered, mindful of any eavesdropping ears nearby, "why didn't I see this?" Her premonitions were usually triggered by touch, and she had touched her stomach plenty of times. Shouldn't that have caused something?

Leo immediately understood what she was asking. With magic, there were many answers, but there were three he thought were more likely than the rest. "You can't see everything," the Whitelighter reminded her, also in a whisper. "Your powers are tied to your emotions, and it makes sense that they'd be a little off right now…or…" Leo hesitated, not wanting to say it, but knowing he had to, "Something might be blocking them."

That was a euphemism for saying that the baby could be blocking Phoebe's premonitions—at least in relation to itself—and that was a terrifying thought. However, a clinic was not the place to dwell on it, and Leo reminded her of that. "You better fill that out," he pointed to the paper. Phoebe quickly filled out the form, with Piper's help, finishing just as the receptionist returned.

"Why don't you follow me back to the exam room," the lady instructed.

"Um, will the doctor need to do a pelvic exam?" It had just occurred to Phoebe that she needed Leo in the room with her in case of any magical mishaps, but she wasn't exactly comfortable with him witnessing that.

The receptionist shook her head. "It's not likely," she replied, much to both Phoebe and Leo's relief.

The woman led them into a room and, after his two older charges declined it, Leo sat down in a chair—he did not settle down, for he'd not been this uncomfortable since he'd first become a Whitelighter. Phoebe barely had time to hoist herself onto the exam table before two women walked in. One was wearing the traditional white lab coat, while the other wore pink scrubs and was pushing an ultrasound machine ahead of her. The doctor and the ultrasound tech.

"Hello," the older woman in the white coat greeted. "I'm Dr. Morrison, and this is our ultrasound tech, Kelly." The pink-scrub lady greeted them briefly, focusing on setting up her equipment. "How are you feeling today, Miss Halliwell? Apparently, you've been involved in a fight, or something of the sort?"

"Sort of," Phoebe admitted. "I mean, I'm fine. I think. I found out I was pregnant, and I just wanted to make sure…"

"When were you hit?" the doctor questioned.

"Awhile ago. Someone body slammed me, and landed on my stomach."

The doctor frowned. "Well, why don't we check it out, hmm?"

Phoebe waited impatiently, while the doctor took all of her vitals herself, something a nurse would normally do. Instead of being reassured by it, she found herself intimidated—it drove home how serious the situation could be. Finally, they finished with that part of the examination and moved on to the next. The doctor stepped back, and the ultrasound technician took her place.

"Now, I'm going to rub some gel on your stomach," the woman informed her. "It's going to feel cold…"

And it did, but at least they were able to move on with the exam. The tech pressed the handheld device to Phoebe's stomach and the previously silent machine seemed to come to life. It was filled with the sounds of her body, a faint echo of her own heartbeat…and the much more distinct sound of another.

Prue barely held back a groan.

Dr. Morrison smiled. "And it appears you are indeed pregnant," she stated cheerfully. The tech pointed to a blob in the middle of the monitor. Phoebe stared. There was…her baby. Correction: hers and Cole's baby. Only it didn't look much like a baby. It just looked like a mass…with a heartbeat.

"How far along am I?" Phoebe heard herself asking. She couldn't be very far along…

The tech leaned in a bit closer. "About eight weeks," she finally decided, and the doctor nodded her agreement. Eight weeks. Not all that long before Phoebe had learned of Cole's true identity, before her life had been turned upside down. Amazing how much had changed since then.

"There doesn't appear to be anything wrong," the doctor informed them. "Ms. Halliwell, I'd say you and your baby came out of that fight very well. Congratulations. You're a very lucky young woman."

Oh, how unlucky she felt right now! Phoebe was pregnant, single, and unemployed. She fought demons daily, and both of her sisters were angry with her. She had lied to them about killing her half-demon lover! And now, to top it all off, she was pregnant with said half-demon's baby!

What was she going to do?

Oblivious to her patient's thoughts, Dr. Morrison continued, "You should probably make an appointment with your obstetrician soon. If you don't have one, I can give you a list of recommended physicians."

"What? Oh, yeah, sure," Phoebe responded distractedly. She couldn't think about that right now. "Um, can I call back to do that?"

"Of course. Just be sure to do that soon."

After that, there was nothing else to do at the appointment. Phoebe paid the copayment—thank God she had the rather measly student medical insurance—and the whole party left. Prue finally spoke up once they were in the safety of the SUV.

"Phoebe," she prodded, with a tiny bit of bite still in her voice. "What are you going to do?"

Unable to give her sister a definitive answer, Phoebe shrugged helplessly. "I have no idea," she replied honestly. And she didn't. She had no idea what she was going to do about her quarter-demon baby.