Disclaimer: I in no way own or claim to own Charmed. If I did Phoebe and Cole NEVER would have broken up LOL I merely do this for fun and to get it out of my brain. I am making no money off of this.
Notes: This is my first fanfiction ever so please be kind. I accept constructive criticism and any ideas people come up with. Thanks! Please no Flames!
Pairings: Main Phoebe/Cole and the normal pairings for the rest of the Charmed ones.
Beta: Raykushi is my beta thanks a lot Ray! Also if anyone who is knowledgeable about Charmed universe wants a beta job please PM me!
Summary: The future was all wrong. It wasn't supposed to be this way! Chris and Wyatt go back in time to fix the past and reunite their family. Phoebe and family find out how some things are not always what they seem and how wrong they were about Cole. Two families are brought together by the two travels from the future. Cole/Phoebe AU
SPOILERS: It was recommended to me to put spoilers if you haven't seen all of Charmed yet. This Chapter and probably many after this one will reference certain episodes in the show so please be prepared!
A/N: Please note this is all a flashback in first person; we have not yet reached present time. Thank you.
A/N: OMG! I can't believe it took me soooo long to get this new chapter up! Sorry it took a while. I had a new job and school and just serious issues. Ugh. But here is a new chapter I wanted it to be longer but what can you do. Hope you all like it!
My name is Cole, and I have never had what you would call an easy life. First, I was born half human and half demon. Right there that should tell you my life is going to be full of hard times and lots of pain. Being part human makes you weak in the eyes of the Underworld. It makes you less than a demon and far below others. Being half demon automatically makes you evil in the eyes of the human race. Never mind the fact that all humans have a little evil in themselves, which makes my demon side just a manifestation of that inner evil.
Maybe it was for that reason that humans hated me, because I showed them what was inside them so they therefore shunned me and hated me with a degree reserved for their own self-loathing. So in this way, it would seem that humans are much more demonic then the demons themselves.
I was born in San Francisco on January 19, 1885. This was a good year to be born. With the end of the Depression, I grew up not wanting for anything. My mother was hiding her demon heritage and my father was an assembly man for the state, so they were quite wealthy. But that all ended very quickly. My father found out his wife was a demon and when he tried to keep me, his son, from her she killed me and took me to the Underworld. After that my life turned to Hell, quite literally. My mother told me to suppress my human side, considering it a weakness that would bring me down. So for years I lived in the Underworld, being tortured in the Academy and suppressing my human side until I became one of the most feared demons in the Underworld.
Over the years my reputation as an assassin grew in leaps and bounds and I became the most powerful demon, second only to the Source. Then I was given the greatest mission of my life. To end the Charmed Ones once and for all. The Triad said I was most suited to infiltrating the mortal realm with my human side letting me blend in better than a full demon.
It worked. I got a job as an attorney and I was damn good at it. After building my reputation and establishing my life, I started working towards my goal of getting close to the Charmed Ones. It seemed that the Fates were on my side because the Charmed sisters end up falling right into my lap with a murder case they had witnessed.
After that it was easy to get the youngest sister to fall in love with me. But something was building inside me that I didn't realize until it was too late. Then it happened. I couldn't kill her. I had succumbed to the one human emotion that no one has any control over.
Love.
I gave up everything to be with Phoebe, my Charmed One, my prey, my witch, my love. For a moment I thought it could work, but then she found out about me and I had to run. Still, I knew she still loved me despite being a demon. So I had to return. I had to try and make it work, I just had to.
And I did. I returned and we were able to be together. Sure, her siblings weren't all sunshine and rainbows about their sister dating a demon, but they eventually came around. They knew they could count on me to help them and I wasn't going to let them down.
Then it happened. Raynor.
Why did Raynor have to ruin everything? Just when the girls started accepting me, he had to come back into my life and rip it all away. But Piper, dear naive Piper thought I still must love Phoebe even though I returned to evil, and wanted me to help save Phoebe from turning into a Banshee. But I didn't return to evil! Raynor had cast a spell on me and no magic could ever erase Phoebe from my heart, so I saved her. I think this is where my greatest disservice to the Halliwell family happened and I'm surprised no one blamed me for it. Because Phoebe came down to me in the Underworld after I saved her, her sister died.
It was my fault.
If Phoebe hadn't been down there her sister would probably still be alive. I beat myself up over it every day. Prue was so amazingly strong. She and I might not have gotten along, but I respected her. Her death was a tragedy. But despite that, I don't think Prue would have been able to accept Paige like Piper and Phoebe did. So in a way I guess it was fate.
Amazingly I was accepted back into the Halliwell family again and things were going well. So well I thought my life was changing. I was so blinded by the present I never saw the future coming until it was too late.
I proposed to Phoebe, my dear sweet loving Phoebe. She was everything I wanted in life. My light. My beacon to shine through the darkness that consumed my life.
Then I lost my powers, my demon half, to a power-stripping potion and felt lost and confused and clung to Phoebe even more. She was now my tether to the magical world that I had lost. It was because of this need of her that I took in the Hollow to save her and her sisters. In a way it was a bit selfish. I loved Phoebe, don't get me wrong, but my need of her sometimes outweighed my love. Yes, they might be saying I took in the Hollow and became the Source because I wanted my powers back after becoming human. But no amount of power could ever tempt me away from Phoebe. All I wanted to do was save her, my future wife, and her sisters. Whether I was human or demon it didn't matter as long as Phoebe was with me.
But when the Seer told me and the sisters that the Source had gone into the Void, we never assumed it was the Void in me that was left from the stripping of my demon half. This is when my life ended.
For so long I was trapped in the back of my mind as the Source used my body to hurt the Charmed Ones. Every so often I was able to break free at the last second to protect them, but after I was always too weak and could do nothing as I watched the Source make more and more plans. So I saved my strength until the right moment.
When the wizard came along I knew it was my shot. I took control and tried to get him to take the Source from me, to be free. But that damn Seer had to get Phoebe involved and she turned evil with me. I have to admit I was touched. She loved me so much that she was willing to turn evil? Well, I stopped fighting the Source after that. I was too weak anyway, to do anything, and watched in shock and a little bit of pride as the girls vanquished me.
I was finally free of the Source and found myself in the Wasteland. I tried to call out to Phoebe and finally managed to get her to come to me. I knew she would get me out. She turned evil for me so of course she would help me. Imagine my shock and hurt when she refused and told me to just let go and never return. What? What happened to my wife? That girl that risked her sisters' wrath to be with me? After she left, I knew I couldn't give up. I would show her that I was still good. So I collected powers until I was strong enough and broke out of the Wasteland.
I saved Phoebe once again but something seemed to have changed in my wife. She hated me and had given up on us altogether. I tried so hard to hold off on the divorce that she wanted. I tried so hard to prove how much I still loved her. Then Darryl and Paige came to me and told me to give up. Give up? Give up my wife? The only family I have ever really known? Give up my child?
I thought about it for awhile and came to the realization that despite the fact that I would be giving up everything that meant something to me, I would be making Phoebe somewhat happier. With this decided, I started to pack to leave. Then Phoebe's sister Paige came to me again. What is it with these Halliwell sisters? I told her I was leaving, but now Paige had changed her tune and told me to rescue Phoebe and showed me how much Phoebe still loved me. With this in mind I saved Phoebe and decided not to leave. After all, the woman that I loved so much obviously still loved me.
After that, I think, is when my life truly hit its lowest. I found out that the Seer had stolen my child and that he was dead. Phoebe felt that the child wasn't even mine but the Source's. I wanted to scream at her. Of course the child was ours! Otherwise why would they spend so much time feeding her the evil tonic?! The child could have been saved with all the good magic in her house purging the evil magic, but she didn't think that way. I was heartbroken that my child, my baby boy was dead before I could even become a father. So I kept pursuing Phoebe and pushing harder than before. If we got back together we could just have another child.
I should have seen it coming. With how hard I pursued her and the coming madness that was slowly spreading throughout my being, I should have seen the end was in sight. But I was foolish. I thought if I just kept working harder and pushing harder, I could have a happy life.
Then came the Avatars and they sped up my insanity. I tried to fight them off. I didn't want to belong to that kind of organization anymore. On my birthday was when I finally fell and shattered. They tried to kill me again and I just couldn't take it. I tried to change reality with the powers of the Avatars so I could have Phoebe again, but it didn't work and they vanquished me.
When I awoke I saw nothing but grey. I was there in that nothingness for so long, it truly felt like a thousand years had passed. Eventually I was visited by one of the Keepers. A mystical being that was in charge of the realm I was stuck in. He (at least I thought it was a he) explained to me that I was in The Void. It is a place between the living and the dead but different from Limbo. Limbo is a place where spirits go to move on when they are ready. The Void is a place where spirits won't move on because they themselves won't move on or they are put there because the higher powers don't want them to move on. It is quite a sad and painful existence. After that visit, I was left alone for awhile.
A change happened suddenly one day. I was just floating in the grey nothing when I saw a flash of color and heard a quick sound. Intrigued, I focused on it and for a brief second I saw the world. And not just any piece of the world. I saw the Halliwell Manor.
Then my life became nothing but trying to get that image to return. It took a while but I was finally able to get the image to stay. It was then I realized that I wasn't just watching an image, I was actually in the real world again! My elation at finally being back in the real world soon vanished when I realized that no one could see or hear me and I couldn't touch anything. I realized that I was being forced to watch the world pass by, helpless.
I watched the family I was supposed to be with pass me by, forgetting all about me. I was so angry for so long, but eventually my anger for them fell away. I don't know what it was, but I felt like all my time watching gave me something akin to enlightenment. I was so focused on getting back together with Phoebe that I never considered her feelings enough. I backed her into a corner and her sisters merely reacted to that. Oh, I'm not saying they are without fault, but really the problem stemmed from both of us and I only realized that when it was too late.
As I was watching the Halliwell family I started to see a disturbing trend. Love was being pushed out of their lives. At first I thought I was the problem, but then my new found enlightenment told me the truth. That I might have made the problem escalate, but I wasn't the root.
Even though I had gotten over Phoebe and the Halliwell's, I still cared for them enough to want to help them. So I devised a plan to get them believing in love again. I worried it wouldn't work but Drake was a great help and amazingly Piper listened to me. Everything was going to be okay. I just knew it.
When I saw the cupid come into Phoebe's life and they started to fall in love, I knew it was time to leave this place. I might have finally given up on having Phoebe but that didn't mean I wanted to see her get married. So I started to wander around and talked to some of the other lost souls. When some of them found their peace with me and passed on, I knew I had found something meaningful to do. I started to help those lost souls find peace and send them to the afterlife. I wasn't able to help everyone, but for the ones I did help it made me feel good for once.
Eventually I started to hear rumors' flying around through the spirit world that something big was going to happen to the Charmed Ones. I rushed back to watch over them, even though I knew I couldn't do much. I witnessed them being killed by the Ultimate Power and felt myself die a little inside at not being able to help. I wanted to scream. When I saw Piper fix things for good it made me happy and I felt that the Halliwell's would finally get the peace they deserved. And I knew it was time for me to move on for good.
Years passed by and I kept helping the lost souls that I found. I was able to travel anywhere, so I ended up helping lost souls from all over the world. It made me feel needed and good for once in my life. I thought nothing could make me feel happier until something astounding happened.
I was traveling around, not really thinking of anywhere to go specifically, when suddenly I felt a huge tug and I dematerialized. I opened my eyes that I didn't know I closed and found myself in front of a panel of beings. I looked around and saw the Keepers in the middle with some of the exalted Elders to the side.
I looked forward as one of the Keeper started speaking. "Coleridge Turner. You are brought before this counsel because someone has petitioned us for your freedom."
My eyes widened in surprise. Someone petitioned them to free me?! I coughed and looked up at them. "Who?"
The Keepers motioned someone forward and I was confused. I had never seen this girl before in my life. Why would she risk punishment from higher beings to free me?
The Keeper looked at the woman. "Skylar Turner." I nearly stumbled in shock at the name. "State your reasoning for this petition, and your relationship to the being known as Coleridge Turner."
Skylar bowed before the panel. "Honored Keepers. As you known, my name is Skylar Turner. I am the wife of Benjamin Turner, Coleridge Turner's son. I have come before you to ask that you release him into our custody so that he may help teach his son and grandchildren. He has been put here unfairly and was never rewarded for his services to the greater good."
I could do nothing as I stared at this woman who claimed to be married to my son. My son! He was dead! I started to get angry that this woman would claim such a thing but before I could yell at her an Elder stood up.
"This . . . demon deserves worse then what he has gotten! He should be in hell! Not given a second chance!" the Elder yelled.
Skylar squared her shoulders and glared, I mean she GLARED at the Elder! I was in awe of this young woman. "This MAN has done more good and has sacrificed more than many other PEOPLE, and YOU Elder have no say in these proceedings. You are merely here as an observer, an unwanted one at that."
The Keepers nodded and started to converse among themselves. One Keeper stood up and everything in the room fell silent. "Skylar is right. She falls under our jurisdiction and so does the being in question. The Elders are just here to know what is happening.
"We have kept an eye on the being known as Cole for quite some time. We have found he is deserving of a second chance." The Elders were in an uproar. The Keeper slammed his fist on the table silencing the room. "We have spoken! The being known as Coleridge Turner will be released into the custody of Skylar and Benjamin Turner. Cole Turner, you are hereby released into probation for the next ten years. You will continue to do the work you have been doing, but this time in an official capacity. You will be turned into a Watcher, a being that oversees a specific area and helps those in need. You will maintain your demonic powers to help your family learn to control their demonic heritage, but you will no longer have your demonic side. This way you will be whole and will not be a risk like you were with that Source fiasco."
"To appease the Elders, we will give you a whitelighter to watch over you and make sure you stay good. Your family needs one anyway for their witch heritage. Does this please the Elders?"
The Elders grumble a bit but can do nothing else.
The Keeper nodded. "The whitelighter will be Prue Halliwell. It is right since they are her family, and she knows Cole and will be able to tell if he is giving into evil. So mote it be!"
In a bright flash of light everything vanished around me and it was all I could do to cover my eyes. When the light faded I found myself in a park.
Skylar gave a sigh of relief. "Well that went well!" She turned to me and smiled. "Welcome back to the living, Mr. Turner. We should get going. Your son is anxiously awaiting your arrival."
I growled and pushed her against the tree, finally remembering my anger at being told my son was alive. "My son is dead! How can you stand there and claim he's alive?!"
Skylar didn't fight. "It is a long story and one better told in a house where others can't overhear."
I thought about it and finally decided to give the woman the benefit of the doubt. After all, she did just get me my freedom. I let go of her and she nodded in thanks and held out her hand. "I'll take us there, so please hold on tight."
I hesitated for a second, and then took hold of her hand. Seconds later we disappeared in a shower of grey orbs. When we reappeared we were in front of a moderate-looking home.
I quickly let go of Sky's hand and stared at her. "You're a whitelighter?" Sky laughed and shook her head. I frowned. "But you just orbed."
Sky nodded and smiled. "But not a whitelighter. My orbs are grey. I'm a greylighter. I belong neither to the good or the evil side."
I nodded, not quite understanding but willing to go along with it. "Okay," I said simply.
Sky nodded and started walking up the steps to the house. Before I could even follow the door opened and there stood a man that looked so much like me and Phoebe I couldn't believe it. The man smiled and walked out towards me. He stopped in front of me and I was in shock at the likeness between us.
I nearly jumped when the man started speaking. "Hello. You're probably shocked and confused, but I promise, everything will be explained. My name is Benjamin Turner and I am your son."
A/N: Well there you have it! A new chapter after such a long hiatus! Sorry everyone for making you wait so long. I will try and get the next chapter out as soon as I can!
Please note this is all a flashback in first person, we have not yet reached present time. Thank you.