Disclaimer: "Angel", along with all related characters and concepts, was created by Joss Whedon and Co., so they don't belong to me, while "Charmed" characters and concepts belong to Constance M Burge. Anyway, enjoy

Feedback: As always, I'd appreciate it

The Sire, the Son, and the Future

"OK," Phoebe looked impatiently at Paige, "we've got our Whitelighter running around finding more demons for us to vanquish, your boyfriend's off on some magical spiritual retreated to deal with his obsession with his vampire sire, Piper's freaking out about her new date, and now you want us to get involved in some kind of magical family feud?"

"Hey, they've been throwing curses at each other for years and I'm not sure even they know what really started it all off; we can't exactly let them keep doing that if there's any way we can stop it!" Paige countered. "Come on, we can't just keep on kicking butt whenever there's a problem; wouldn't it be nice to have a problem that we can solve without having to kill something?"

"…Worth a shot, anyway," Phoebe acknowledged, sighing and nodding at Paige. "So long as you think they both want it; we're not going to make them stop against their will."

"All we need to do is give it a shot," Paige said reassuringly. "Come on, they're both just keeping this up because it's habit; with your empathy as a mediator, we could sort this before Piper even gets home!"

"Fine," Phoebe sighed, looking pointedly at Paige. "Just to be sure, this isn't just because the guy's hot, right?"

"Excuse me?" Paige countered indignantly. "I'm with Angel; just because… OK, I looked, but that doesn't mean I want to touch, I just want to stop anyone else getting caught up in their stupid fight!"

"OK, OK, I believe you, don't get tetchy…" Phoebe said, raising her hands defensively as she stood up; she might still be adjusting to this new power, but she could clearly sense Paige's continued affection for Angel even amid her brief spikes of lust when she thought about this 'Richard' guy. "Let's just get over there and see what's going on, OK?"

"On it," Paige said, taking her sister's hand and orbing back to the Montana house. Finding the door shut was a slight surprise, but Paige didn't let it concern her; she'd assured Richard that she'd be back as soon as she could, but it wasn't like he had no right to be cautious given his family's history.

It was only when her knock on the door met with a firm glare from Richard at the other side that Paige realised things were more complicated than just him wanting privacy.

"Uh… hi," she said, hoping that her guess was wrong. "This is my sister, Phoebe-"

"My father's dead."

"Oh," Paige said, lost for anything else to say to such a revelation. "Richard, I'm sorry-"

"Things are going to get worse," Richard said bluntly. "You should get out."

With that grim statement, he stepped back inside the house and closed the door, leaving Paige and Phoebe to look awkwardly at each other.

"…OK, so maybe we're here to stop this feud getting worse just… because?" Paige said uncertainly. "I mean, it can't exactly be a coincidence that we get here just as everything's set off again-"

"I don't think so," Phoebe said, looking at the house opposite the Montanas'. "You said the other side of the feud lives across the road, right?"

"Yeah… so?"

"So," Phoebe said as she looked back at her sister, "if they just killed a prominent member of the household they've been fighting with for the past few decades or more, I'd imagine that I'd feel something… intense from that side of the street… but I'm not getting anything."

"Anything?"

"I mean, there's the usual sort of resentment you'd expect from someone who's been feuding with their neighbours for that long, but there's no sign of anyone feeling particularly vindictive or hostile right now," Phoebe explained. "Either they don't know that Richard's father is dead because they don't know if whatever they did to kill him hit him or not…"

"Or they never did it in the first place," Paige finished for her sister, briefly grinning before the smile faltered on her face. "So if they didn't kill Richard's father…"

"Who or what did?"

In a slightly warped way, Paige was relieved at this fresh turn of events; it wasn't that she wanted Richard's family to be in danger, but at least now they had clearer evidence that this was a situation that seemed to need the Charmed Ones' involvement.

The question now was what kind of opponent were they up against, and would they figure it out before more people died?

We're going to need to hit the books on this one… which means we need the book experts.

"Doyle?" Phoebe looked at her boyfriend in surprise as she walked into the Angel Investigations office, the Irish half-demon sitting behind his desk in a brooding manner that she would have expected from Angel rather than her fellow seer. "What's wrong?"

"Few things," Doyle noted grimly. "Startin' with the fact that someone came here lookin' for Angel, threatened me with a gun if he didn't get out, and then Wes pretended to be him to get the guy off my back-"

"Hold on, I must have missed something," Phoebe held up a halting hand. "Someone came here and threatened you with a gun to get Angel, and just accepted that Wesley was Angel?"

"Exactly!" Doyle nodded in conformation. "I mean, why come all this way to find a guy when you make that kind of mistake about what he looks like?"

"Uh… Maybe we should be more concerned about the fact that Wesley's currently out there with someone who thinks he's a vampire?" Phoebe asked, not wanting to analyse Doyle's point when they had bigger problems than people making stupid decisions. "I mean, OK, they probably want him to do a bit more than be some kind of freaky test subject if they came looking for Angel specifically instead of just grabbing some random vamp off the street, but that doesn't change the fact that Wes is going to get killed if he gets into something too big…"

"No chance of Paige finding them?"

"Wes's status as her charge is still a bit… off, and she's busy with our own crisis right now; she might not be able to focus on him properly," Phoebe shrugged, wondering why more people working with them just made their threats more complicated rather than less. "I'll call Piper and check Wes's books for any ideas on our other problem; you try and find the guy who took Wesley in the first place."

"Good plan," Doyle nodded, turning over his options thoughtfully. "Now I think about it, man looked a bit rough around the edges; maybe Darryl could help me find some kind of criminal record for him…"

While Wesley appreciated that his impersonation of Angel so far might have been 'exaggerated' in some areas, he liked to think that he was doing rather well on such short notice. He was slightly surprised that the Bryces had so easily accepted his rather weak excuse about the mirror, but at least his cover was being accepted so far despite his minor gaffes like grabbing that crucifix (He guessed Virginia assumed that he was so used to operating in certain areas that he was thrown by being taken out of his 'comfort zone').

Admittedly, he was still puzzled by what could have prompted Bryce's enemies to take such a comparatively sudden interest in his daughter, or what was so distinct about these latest threats that Bryce would come all the way to San Francisco to hire Angel in particular when there had to be experienced bodyguards in Los Angeles, but when he was trying to maintain his own bluff it didn't seem like a good time to ask such questions.

Besides… after so long in a business where the only women he spent any time with were either already attached or single but with too much baggage for Wesley to feel comfortable making a move, there was something about Virginia that was honestly appealing. She had a fair knowledge of magic from her upbringing, even if she wasn't particularly enthusiastic about it, but there was also a certain vulnerability about her that Wesley honestly found intriguing. She clearly cared about her father, given the effort she was going to trying to find him a gift for his upcoming birthday, but it was a very strained relationship, judging by Virginia's comment about how her father had to love something when he didn't love her.

Granted, the shopping excursion had been interrupted by those thugs, but it had been rather amusing to see them back down so quickly at just the thought of fighting 'Angel'…

"I hope you weren't too frightened," he said, as he walked Virginia back to her room.

"No, more angry, you know?" the young woman shrugged in a low voice.

"Well, they were trying to intimidate you-"

"Not at them," Virginia clarified. "At the whole thing, at the fact that I have to live like this."

"It's a bad situation," Wesley acknowledged.

"It's a bad situation?" Virginia repeated, turning to look at him incredulously. "It's a waste of a life! I keep waiting for my life to start and it never does. There is just- more locks, and surveillance cameras and- OK, what is this now, bedroom guards?" she asked, looking incredulously at two robed men standing by her door. "You go back and tell my dad-"

As one of the robed figures grabbed Virginia while the other raised one hand to summon a ball of fire, Wesley took just long enough to confirm that he wasn't facing a demon before he grabbed the man's hand and forced it shut, putting out the amateur fireball before following up with a punch to the face. With his immediate opponent dazed, Wesley turned to strike the man holding Virginia in the face, following it up by grabbing the first man and throwing him into his colleague, leaving them to scramble to their feet and run as Wesley glared at them.

"You were amazing," Virginia said, looking at him in awe.

"I was a bit," Wesley replied, smiling at the thought; he'd reached this point via convoluted route, but he'd certainly come a long way from the man who was impressed at the memory of how he'd taken out two vampires in controlled conditions.

"Your face?" Virginia said, looking uncertainly at him. "You didn't go all… like a regular vampire."

"Ah," Wesley said, swiftly deciding to go for something that was less of an explicit lie. "I suppose I'm not like a regular vampire."

As the red-head looked at him with a warm smile, Wesley felt like he'd accomplished something solo for the first time since he'd graduated from the Watcher's Academy.

He knew that his actions had made a difference while he was working with Angel and the Charmed Ones, but there was something different about knowing that he had done something, rather than relying on everyone else to do it…

"Your abductor works for Magnus Bryce," Darryl said, looking inquiringly at Doyle as the Irish seer stood alongside his desk in the police station. "Guy normally lives in L.A., which raises the question of why someone like that would come all the way here for one vampire?"

"Few ideas, nothing definite," Doyle shrugged. "Possible he's one of those multi-taskers, but no way to be sure…"

"Excuse me?" Darryl looked curiously at his strange associate. "Multi-taskers? As in you think he got this good using magic?"

"You'd be surprised how many people out there use a few spells to get a good public rep," Doyle shrugged. "Don't know for definite, but I've heard that Kevin Smith made a good guess when he suggested that someone made a deal with the devil to make Home Alone such a hit, and that's just the most public one."

"Some things you really don't want to know," Darryl mused, before he turned his attention back to the sheet in front of him. "Guy has a bit of a reputation for assault and B&E, but nothing serious enough that they'd go out of their way to make it stick or cover it up; in other words, the kind of person willing to do questionable stuff for enough cash."

"But Bryce is the big-shot he's associated with, right?"

"No real sign that he's known to anyone else with a lot of cash to spend on his kind of work."

"OK," Doyle nodded. "Thanks for that."

"You don't want to fill a report?"

"Not exactly enough to make a legitimate claim for abduction without getting into why anyone would do this to get a meeting with a private investigator," Doyle pointed out. "We'll let you know if we need any more help, but right now probably best to keep this all in-house."

"Fair enough," Darryl noted, even if he didn't completely like it. "Actually, considering that crap with Darla trying to frame Angel recently, probably best we don't bring him up any time soon."

"Point," Doyle mused, even as he crossed his fingers in his pocket.

Nothing in Bryce's history suggested he'd do anything particularly twisted to Angel, but that didn't mean the Watcher wasn't in trouble if someone found out what was going on…

Looking around the attic at the assembled two families, Paige could only hope that her amateur diplomatic skills were up to this task (she would have preferred to go and get Angel, but Piper had pointed out that after starting these talks it would be better for her and Leo to supervise them while she went to pick up the vampire). Leo might have agreed to act as a mediator to give this talk a bit more authority, and Phoebe's recent discovery suggested that they might be able to explicitly identify a third party as the reason for the escalation, but that didn't guarantee anything if people were being particularly stubborn.

"You think a ghost is trying to break the truce?" James Callaway asked, enforcing Paige's earlier fears.

"Could be an angry relative who can't let go," Phoebe shrugged hopefully. "All I can tell you is that there was definitely plasma balls being thrown about your house recently, which makes it pretty clear there's a ghost involved."

"This is ridiculous; it's just another trick-" Richard's brother Steve began.

"No it's not," Richard cut in, grabbing Steve's arm before he could leave. "I asked them to come; just let it play out, alright?"

"Thanks," Phoebe nodded at him before turning to light the five red candles she was arranging on a table in the middle of the room. "OK, by summoning this spirit, we bring them into our plane, so be careful not to break the circle until we've helped it move on, or else we're gonna have some angry spirits running amok. Everybody ready?"

For a moment, Paige wondered if her sister was going to say something to try and calm the mood, but Phoebe simply indicated to everyone else to join hands in a circle.

"Unknown spirit," Paige began after a nod from Phoebe, "we call to thee, Those who wish to set you free, Cross on over so we may help, Come to us, reveal yourself."

A gust of wind blew in the centre of the circle, the group shifting back slightly before lights appeared in the centre, subsequently fading to reveal a glowing, transparent young woman with fair red hair in a white dress.

"Olivia?" the Callaway father said in shock.

"Hello, daddy; miss me?" the ghost who was clearly Olivia said, before turning to Richard with a warm smile. "Richard."

"I don't understand," James Callaway said. "You attacked us. Why?"

"Because you didn't avenge my death, that's why," the ghost said, turning rapidly around to face the Callaway father with a cold glare.

"But you were hit by one of your own," Rosaline said.

"Or so you were led to think," Olivia countered, before sharply turning around again. "But that's not exactly true, is it, Steve?"

"It was an accident," Steve said, after an awkward glare.

"We were set up," one of the other Montanas said in frustration.

"Don't break the chain," Paige called over as Rosaline tried to leave.

"No, we wouldn't want that now, would we, Paige?" Olivia asked.

"OK, we have to move this along now, because woo," Phoebe whispered to Paige in a low voice.

"This can't be right," Richard said, looking urgently around the circle in denial. "This can't be you."

"I was wrong about the feud, Richard," Olivia said, as she turned to face him. "It can never end; I know that now. But that doesn't mean we can't still be together. Once I have my revenge."

With that solemn word, she vanished from the middle of the circle, along with a burst of wind that knocked everyone backward, breaking the chain. As she got back to her feet, Paige briefly wondered if that would come back to haunt them in a more literal sense, but as the Callaways and Montanas walked away, clearly still blaming each other for this conflict, she had more immediate issues to focus on than something that might not happen.

"Richard…" she began, only to find herself lost for words as he walked out.

"OK, that could have gone better," Phoebe noted.

"You think?" Paige glared back at her sister before hurrying out of the attic and down the stairs. She'd just reached the main hall when Olivia's ghost appeared in front of her, the dead woman glaring coldly at her.

"Why don't we go after Richard together?" the ghost smiled before moving forward to enter Paige's body, blanking out the half-Whitelighter's conscious mind just before she could do anything to orb to safety.

With all awareness of the outside world lost, all Paige could do was pray that Angel or Piper would realise what was happening to her before Olivia did anything she couldn't take back once she regained control…

"Are you all right?" Wesley asked, looking anxiously at Virginia as he sat beside her on her bed, the young woman now having removed her jacket. "I mean, two close calls like that…"

"I guess so," Virginia shrugged. "I don't know; are we safe now?"

"I don't know," Wesley said, deciding to be honest; even if Angel had been here to protect here, there would have been no guarantees of anything.

"Sometimes I think about running away," Virginia admitted with a smile. "Isn't that ridiculous, a 24 year old runaway?"

"We all want to escape our lives sometimes," Wesley said, briefly wondering if his time as Angel could be a similar experience to what he was describing; he was certainly getting away from who he was.

"I think about getting my own place, a little apartment," Virginia continued. "A job, something silly like, uh, a perfume sprayer, or working at a tire store."

"A tire store?" Wesley repeated, even as the two of them laughed at the idea.

"I told you it was ridiculous."

"No, no, it sounds wonderful. Rotating tires and inflating… things... Your father would not allow it, I'd imagine."

"Oh no, it's too dangerous," Virginia said, amusement replaced by frustration. "He says they would grab me in a second and use me to get to him. If you think about it, he's saying that if I moved out, it would kill him. I'd be responsible."

"That's a huge burden to put on you," Wesley noted, leaning forward thoughtfully.

"I just…" Virginia leaned on his shoulder. "I just want out."

For a moment, Wesley just enjoyed the experience of the young woman leaning on him, the kind of closeness he hadn't experienced since leaving England, but then she leaned in and kissed him on the lips, and his eyes widened in surprise.

"Virginia…" Wesley began, before she kissed him again.

"I'm sorry," Virginia said, even as they continued exchanging brief kisses. "I know we can't."

"Yeah… why?" Wesley asked.

"Well, you're a pretty famous guy, Angel," Virginia clarified, pulling back with a brief smile. "I hear the guards talk sometimes. I know."

"Know?" Wesley asked, wondering just how much the outside world knew about Angel; Paige and Angel had tried to be discreet, both about their relationship and the changes the Charmed Ones had made to Angel's curse when restoring his soul, but it was always possible something had slipped out…

"About the curse."

"Ah, the curse," Wesley said, grateful that the only thing he had to deal with was information that was actually out of date. "Well, actually, this 'curse' thing has been widely misinterpreted."

"Really?" Virginia looked curiously at him.

"Yes," Wesley noted as the young woman moved her attention to his ear before kissing him again. "These days, it's less of a curse and more of a hex… actually, barely that… a recommendation…"

"Are you sure you're telling the truth?" Virginia asked, pulling back to look at him.

"Virginia, I want to be honest with you," Wesley began. "I want to tell you everything. I'm not-"

As Virginia fell on him again, further conversation was rendered unimportant as Wesley found himself with more urgent matters to attend to, even before she started pulling off his shirt and her own top.

Concerns about his identity could be dealt with when it wouldn't kill the mood, and his only 'lie' so far was claiming to be a vampire…