Disclaimer: Angel and his respective adversaries belong to Joss Whedon and Co., and all of 'Charmed' belongs to Constance M. Burge; I'm just using them for the moment
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Sent to the Witch
As Phoebe stared in frustration at the sight outside her apartment window, trying desperately to tune out the sound of the thunderstorm outside, she found herself once again reflecting on the changes that had recently taken place in her life.
It was only natural that she should be thinking about them a lot, of course- after all, they were her family, no matter what else had happened to them- but she had made her choice, and she was sticking with Cole.
She'd sworn for better or for worse, and she was sticking to that, come what may.
Just then, the door knocked, breaking off her train of thought.
"Come in," she said, waving her hand slightly impatiently as the door opened and the Seer walked in, carrying a tray with a glass on it.
"My queen," the Seer said politely- Phoebe had to make a conscious effort not to get frustrated at the chanting still taking place in the living room before the Seer closed the door-, "it's time for your tonic."
"Look, can you do anything about this thunder?" Phoebe asked, glancing at the demon behind her in an irritated manner. "It's just making me nuts right now…"
"I apologise, but I have no sway over the weather," the Seer said apologetically. "I do have a friend who works with wind, but she's out of town."
"OK, so wind's out; what about the demons?" Phoebe groaned, as she reached over to pick up the glass the Seer had brought her. "Any sway over them? Because I swear, if they don't shut up-"
As she drank the potion, she screwed up her face in disgust at the foul taste; no matter how often she drank it, it never seemed to improve with familiarity.
"God," she groaned, putting the glass down again, "I hate this stuff!"
"It's for your own good-" the Seer began.
"Yeah, yeah, I get that," Phoebe said, sighing in frustration as she leaned forward. "I just sometimes wonder what happened to good old regular vitamins; at least they don't taste this bad!"
"There's nothing 'regular' about your pregnancy," the Seer pointed out. "The new power you're experiencing is a mere shadow of what's to come; the tonic strengthens you to bear the weight of it."
"OK," Phoebe said, sighing in frustration, "then do me a favour; find me something that strengthens me and doesn't taste like crap!"
As much as it was possible for a demon who could see the future to look surprised, the Seer did so.
"Are you… feeling all right?" she asked.
"Yeah…" Phoebe groaned, as she sat down on the bed once again, "it's just… I have all this work that I have to do and…"
Groaning, she looked over at the door behind the Seer, raising her voice as she finished the sentence by yelling "I can't concentrate!"
"But… you are the queen now," the Seer said, looking almost puzzled by Phoebe's complaint. "There's no reason for you to continue with this work at all."
"Look, I get that you think I should be all 'queen of the underworld' right now, but I happen to like my work," Phoebe countered, sitting up to look at the Seer. "It's a distraction-"
"From what?" the Seer asked, looking quizzically at Phoebe. "Are you still struggling with your decision?"
"No…" Phoebe said, shaking her head slightly uncertainly before she noticed the Seer's sceptical gaze. "Look, I mean, I love Cole, and you know, don't get me wrong, this whole queen thing is kinda fun, it's just..."
"Your sisters," the Seer said.
"Yeah…" Phoebe said, sighing slightly as she stared wistfully up at the ceiling. "I just… I don't understand why they have to be so stubborn. Why they can't just respect my decision?"
"Eh, you know how it is; the good guys tend to have a bit of trouble accepting it when one of their own goes over to the dark side," a voice said from off to the side, accompanied by a sound that vaguely resembled a powerful fire that had suddenly ceased. "I mean, hey, look at it from their point of view; half their team went evil in the last month and one of them actually died in the last year alone? I think they just don't like to admit that they're losing."
Phoebe blinked in shock.
"Angelus?" she said, turning to look in shock at the figure of her sister's ex-boyfriend as he casually leaned against the wall of her room. "How-?"
"Funny thing about your husband being the Source of All Evil," Angelus said by way of explanation as he walked nonchalantly into the main room of the apartment, leaving a small pile of ash on the ground behind him; judging by the sound she'd heard earlier, Phoebe was prepared to bet that he'd forced a demon to shimmer him into the apartment and then broken its neck. "You may still be mostly human- the demonic power's coming on loan from the kid, after all-, but the other half's demon enough to make the need for an invitation unnecessary; didn't you know that? All I need is a way up that doesn't require me to walk through the building- the other demons here don't take too kindly to vamps hanging around- and it's-"
"Look," Phoebe began, staring in frustration at Angelus. "I don't care how you got up here or how demonic Cole is these days; I'm human, so you still shouldn't-"
"Be able to get in without an invitation from you?" Angelus interrupted, chuckling slightly. "Weren't you paying attention? You're partly demonic thanks to the kid, and your husband's totally demon since the Source took up residence; the percentage is just enough in my favour to get into this place without being directly invited."
After a moment's pause as she tried to come up with a potential counter to that statement- during which she vaguely heard an explosion from outside the room-, Phoebe groaned as she looked resignedly at Angelus.
"OK, so you've got free access to the apartment if you can shimmer up; even if you always manage to find a demon to get you inside here, what good does it do you?" she asked, folding her arms as she stared at him. "You made it clear back when you were Angel that your kind of vampire doesn't normally pay much attention to the Underworld; I wouldn't have thought this was the kind of place you'd visit much."
"With the chaos that it had experienced lately?" the Seer put in, looking in a somewhat exasperated manner at Angelus as she spoke. "Trust me; this vampire takes great pleasure in distracting your husband from his great task-"
"Hold on a minute, let me make sure I've got the plot straight here; Angelus has come here before?" Phoebe interjected, looking critically at the Seer.
"Oh, yeah; your husband and I have been chatting ever since the old Source got blown up- nice job on that front, by the way; good to see that having the soul gone didn't weaken your team up that much," Angelus chuckled as he studied Phoebe, before he shook his head somewhat wistfully. "Of course, taking your sisters down isn't going to be that hard right now, what with them being down by one member of the Power of Three and all…"
"Enough," the Seer said warningly, as she moved to stand between Angelus and Phoebe. "I advise you to watch your tongue, vampire; you forget that the terms of the original bargain that prevented the Source from taking your worthless life no longer apply any more."
"Oh, you mean the fact that the whole 'He kills me, the Halliwells know about his demonic status' thing isn't something I can hold over him any more?" Angelus asked, shaking his head slightly as he turned to walk over towards a nearby window; the sun had only recently set, but based on what Phoebe recalled of Angel's description of his limitations, it was still dark enough for Angelus to depart without fear of incineration. "Please, my dear Seer, don't you think I'd have planned for when that would happen? I didn't live for over a century and a half by being an idiot, you know-"
"Yeah, and the fact that you got cursed at the end of it?" Phoebe pointed out, raising her hand as she glared at Angelus, her fingers glowing slightly as she prepared to hurl a fireball at him. "What would you call that; 'bad luck'?"
"I prefer to think of it as something I wasn't expecting; it's not like they'd ever tried it out before, after all," Angelus countered, apparently unconcerned about the glow around his former ally's fingers as he opened the window before him. "Anyway, I'll be off; just wanted to wish you luck on the new team.
"After all," he said, a small smile on his face as he opened the window before him, "what do your sisters matter when compared to your hubby?"
With that, Angelus vaulted out of the window, vanishing from view before either the Seer or Phoebe could do anything.
After a moment's silence, Phoebe glanced over at the Seer.
"That wouldn't kill him, right?" she asked.
"Given Angelus's age, he could easily control his landing to minimise the damage to himself," the Seer admitted, nodding briefly at her. "I could send one of our warlocks to try and deal with him-"
"No… it's not important," Phoebe said, waving a frustrated hand as she stood up and walked towards the door. "If you'll excuse me now, I have some things I'd like to talk with my husband about; if you could just look into something to stop Angelus doing something like that again, I'd really appreciate it."
Even as she stormed into the living room, however, Angelus's parting words continued to reverberate in her mind.
What do your sisters matter when compared to your hubby?
As much as she loved Cole, she had grown up with Piper, she'd spent most of the last four years coming to regard Leo as being pretty much the closest thing to a brother she'd ever had, and even with the tensions between them over Paige's lack of trust when it came to Cole, she really felt that she'd bonded with her new half-sister over the last year…
Hell, though she'd never admit to it, a part of her even missed Angel; she may not have liked the fact that Paige accepted him and couldn't accept Cole, but at least she'd known she could count on him to stand by them when the situation got ugly.
Did she really value Cole- a man she'd known for only a couple of years, no matter how much she loved him- over the family who'd been there for her for far longer than he'd been?
Even as she waved her hand to incinerate one of the demons that were currently keeping Cole occupied, she couldn't shake the nagging doubts the vampire's words had left…
As he walked back into the abandoned-yet-comfortable apartment complex that he and his fellows had acquired for their use shortly after the whole 'Judge' thing had fallen apart, Angelus was only slightly disappointed to see Spike sitting before him in his wheelchair, glaring at the door as his grandsire walked in.
"Ah, the welcoming committee!" Angelus said, smiling nonchalantly at the still-wheelchair-bound vampire before him. "How's things been on the home front while I was gone?"
"Dru's takin' a nap," Spike said dismissively. "Thought I'd take the opportunity to have a little… chat… with you."
"What about?" Angelus asked casually.
"Oh, maybe the fact that you seem to be encouraging the queen of evil to defect back to the other side?" Spike countered, rolling forward slightly to glare at Angelus as much as he could from his position. "Are you sodding nuts, mate? With her gone the other two are practically easy pickings-"
"And then who's going to be left to deal with the Source?" Angelus countered, staring grimly at Spike. "You need to think a bit more long-term, Spike; at least with the Charmed Ones, we've got a slightly better chance at taking them down by attacking them on their own. Besides, thanks to Cole Turner's friendship with the 'good' me, we've got a Source for the first time in several hundred years that actually acknowledges our existence. Let him stay in charge, and he'll either want us dead or he'll want our obedience; he won't settle for much less than that. Don't know about you, but I'm not really interested in either option, know what I mean?"
Despite himself, Spike couldn't help but admit that Angelus had a point; with the new Source having a better idea what he and his kind were capable of, it definitely wasn't that likely that they'd be allowed to continue operating like they had. They'd been ignored in the past because they weren't that tough magically, but with this guy having had an example of what they could do against magic-based demons thanks to the Poof's actions when he had his soul stuffed into him, the bugger might actually start taking an interest in them.
As much as Spike generally liked to disagree with Angelus on principle alone, he really didn't like the idea of having to answer to somebody. If Captain Forehead had a plan that would stop this bugger from trying to take charge of their kind…
Well, as much as Spike hated to admit it, the bugger's plans tended to work out in the end; if he thought he had a way of dealing with the Source, Spike would believe it.
"OK, so you weaken the Source by getting rid of his wife; then what?" the youngest member of the Scrouge asked, raising a critical eyebrow as he stared at his grand-sire. "Stab 'im in the middle of the divorce proceedings while the buggers occupied?"
"Spike, Spike, Spike… you never see the big picture, do you?" Angelus sighed, tutting slightly as he studied his former protégé. "We don't need to kill the Source ourselves."
"We don't?" Spike repeated, looking in confusion back at Angelus. He was definitely starting to wonder if his grand-sire had lost it somewhere along the line; what was with all this crap about weakening the Source if they weren't going to try and attack the bugger at the end of it?
"Nope," Angelus replied, shaking his head with a slight smirk on his face. "Make our dear would-be queen of the Underworld think a bit about her position, and she'll do it for us."
A couple of nights later, Phoebe sat silently in her room, her mind occupied by her actions of the past few days as she fumed over everyone's reaction to her recent decisions.
God… she tries to find some kind of compromise that keeps both sides in this whole mess happy, and what does she get? Her sisters couldn't get why she had to leave the demons alive if she was going to preserve her marriage despite the fact that she still saved the innocent, her husband couldn't get why she had to help her sisters keep the innocents safe even if she didn't vanquish his followers…
For some reason, Angelus's words from his earlier 'visit' to her once again chose that moment to rise to the front of her mind.
Taking your sisters down isn't going to be that hard right now, what with them being down by one member of the Power of Three and all…
He's wrong… Phoebe thought to herself, once again trying to reassure herself that her actions were correct. They're not down by one… I can help even more people this way… I've got an inside look at the demon world that I never had before… I can stop their most damaging plans while still leaving them some victories… I can…
"Rationalising walking the fine line?" Angelus's voice inquired, breaking into her train of thought and prompting her to look at the window, where the vampire currently crouched just outside the glass, smiling nonchalantly at her.
"God, could you be any more of a stalker?" she groaned, as she stood up and walked over to the window to glare at Angelus. "What are you doing here, anyway; I thought it was Paige you wanted to turn?"
"Eh," Angelus said, shrugging as well as he could while still maintaining his grip on the window-pane before him. "I've got an opportunity to have a few conversations with the new queen of the demon underworld; this kinda thing doesn't happen to a vampire very often, you know?"
"What, so now you're a pathetic stalker with a celebrity obsession?" Phoebe retorted, glaring at Angelus for a moment before she threw up her hands in frustration and turned away. "Why am I even bothering talking to you; I've got enough on my plate as it is-"
"Yeah, on that topic, I've been meaning to ask, do you really think you can succeed where rat-boy failed?" Angelus asked, once again sounding frustratingly smug even as Phoebe stopped.
As far as she knew, there was only one person in the world that Angelus would call 'rat-boy', and he had technically vanished from San Francisco a few months ago during the confrontation with the Judge.
"What do you mean, can I succeed where Angel failed?" she asked, curious despite herself as she turned back to study the vampire. She knew that, no matter what he'd been in the past, Angelus was nothing more than a ruthless killer, but on the other hand, he never actually lied to anybody; he twisted the truth to suit his own goals, but he never told anybody something that wasn't fundamentally true.
So long as she didn't allow herself to forget that fact, Phoebe had a feeling that she might actually be able to find out something interesting from the bastard before he decided to leave.
"Oh, didn't Paige tell you?" Angelus continued, smiling slightly at her as he spoke. "Back when the soul first got stuck here, Angel tried to act like he was still me by killing a bunch of criminals and murderers and hoped that'd be enough to keep Darla happy. Kinda like what you're doing now, really; doing bad stuff but trying to keep the end goal being something that benefits the 'good guys' in the end-"
"Your point?" Phoebe asked, folding her arms as she glared at the vampire outside her window.
"My point," Angelus said, the slight smirk fading from his appearance as he stared at her, "is that, in the end, Angel ran away from Darla because he realised that he couldn't walk that kind of line; she tried to make him eat a baby and he bailed out. Hated the guy for doing it, of course- may not have liked him being so picky, but blood's blood, after all-, but hey; you've got to admire a guy who realises he's got to be himself, don't you?"
Phoebe said nothing, but inwardly she was reflecting on Angelus's words.
She had to admit, the vampire did have a point…
The only question was, which version of herself should she be true to?
What she'd been born into- a Charmed One- or what she'd chosen- the Queen of the Underworld?
God… she groaned, as she leaned forward to clasp her head in both hands, just once, can't things be simple for me? All I wanted was to have a good life with my husband and my sisters; is that too much to ask?
Sighing in frustration, Phoebe stood up and headed for the door, shrugging on her coat as she walked down the stairs.
Maybe if she spent a bit of time working on her column, she'd feel a bit more prepared to come to a decision about this whole mess…
As Paige sat in the attic, staring dejectedly at the Book of Shadows, she once again found herself wishing that Angel had never lost his soul; right now, more than ever, she could really have used her vampire boyfriend's words of wisdom and comfort. He may not have had any inherent magical abilities himself, but his knowledge of spells and demons couldn't have failed to be helpful in their current situation.
Then again, maybe his help would have been relatively limited in the end; after all, Piper had been in this game a lot longer than she had, and she definitely wasn't coping well with the current situation.
Great… she groaned to herself, continually studying the Book of Shadows for some ideas while occasionally glancing at her watch; after her drinking phase in the past, she liked to think she knew a thing or two about hangover cures, and the one she was preparing for Piper should be ready in a little while. Once- just once- can we have an ultimate bad guy who goes down easily? Is that so much to ask?
She shook her head in frustration at herself. What am I saying; of course it's too much to ask…
Closing the Book and giving up her self-assigned task as a bad job, Paige headed down the stairs, walking into the kitchen just as Piper was sitting up, clutching her head in her hand as she did so.
"God…" the eldest surviving Halliwell groaned, looking in confusion at the blender in the middle of the kitchen table. "What is that?"
"Hangover cure," Paige said casually. "There was a time I really needed that stuff; I figured it would be best to get it ready now rather than later."
"Ugh…" Piper groaned, as she clutched at her head before looking back at Paige. "Look, I'm sorry I've been kinda… well, useless, lately. It's just… it's one thing when your sister has a husband that you can't stand; it's another when he is the Source of all evil."
"Yeah, I gotcha on that," Paige said, as she poured the contents of the blender into a cup and passed it over to Piper. "Drink up; we've got some stuff to do."
Taking the glass, Piper swallowed the contents, made a face at the taste, and then put the glass down once again.
"We… we can't lose her, Paige," she said, sitting up grimly as she looked at her half-sister. "I can't lose another sister."
"Look," Paige said, turning resolutely to look at Piper, "I think we've got a chance; look at how Phoebe was actually concerned about Greg earlier."
"She's still gone over the edge," Piper countered.
"Look, do you have to look on the negative side all the time?" Paige groaned. "If Angel taught me anything, it's that it's practically impossible to walk that kind of grey area; he tried doing it for a little while after he first got his soul back and he just couldn't do it. All we really need to do to really get through to Phoebe is put her in a position where she has to choose one way or the other; we storm the penthouse, bring the crystals, and, given that we still know the spell, we vanquish the Source the same way we did the last time."
Piper blinked.
"Uh… Paige, aren't you forgetting that the Source is Cole now?" she pointed out, looking in a slightly frustrated manner at her sister. "You really think she's going to just work with us to vanquish him?"
"If it came down to saving you or letting Angelus live, I know which one I'd pick," Paige stated resolutely as she looked at her sister. "Trust me; it's the only guaranteed way to get through to the good that's still inside Phoebe."
After a moment's thoughtful silence, Piper smiled at Paige.
"You know, you still amaze me, Paige," she said, as she stood up to take a better look at her sister. "I mean, less than a year ago you were an only child."
"And I'm not that interested in being one again," Paige responded. "Come on; let's do this. I'll get the crystals."
She had no sooner stepped out into the hallway when the front door opened and Phoebe walked into the house, looking at her with a slightly awkward expression.
"Phoebe?" Paige said, looking in surprise at her sister; as much as she'd hoped Phoebe was breaking Cole's 'conditioning'- or whatever the hell he was doing to her-, she hadn't expected her sister to show up before they'd even left the manor.
"Cole is going to kill Greg Conroy," Phoebe said by way of explanation. "I can't let that happen."
Only her refusal to jeopardise Phoebe's decision by making her think she had been influenced by her sisters- how was to say how far Cole's brainwashing thing extended into her mind?- stopped Paige from punching the air and proclaiming a victory for their side.
The Charmed Ones were back, and this time, Cole wouldn't have a prayer.
A few hours later, inside the abandoned building that served as the new home of the Scrouge of Europe, Drusilla started to smile as she stared up at the ceiling, prompting a curious glance from Angelus and Spike as the two of them sipped at their blood (Given Spike's currently wheelchair-confined status, Angelus had moved the fridge that Angel had kept in his old flat into their current residence, although he stocked it with human blood rather than animal).
"Something up, Dru?" Spike asked, rolling over curiously to look at his sometimes-insane girlfriend.
"Something's down, my dear knights," Drusilla corrected, smiling over at Spike and Angelus as she spoke. "The self-titled origin of our kind has fallen, and soon his offspring will be drawn out of my human-sister into my demon-sister and destroy itself…"
"Hold on a minute; Phoebe's going to lose her kid?" Angelus asked, looking at Dru with a slight smile on his face. He still wasn't entirely clear on why Dru called Phoebe her 'sister' all the time- was it just the fact that they both had visions or did Dru know something about their connection that even he didn't know?-, but right now he was more focused on the fact that she'd be losing the baby.
He wasn't a coward, of course, but the prospect of facing a witch who could do what Phoebe could do while drawing on that baby's power wasn't exactly something he'd enjoy; he'd only survived his earlier meetings with her by playing on her curiosity about whatever he had to say to her at the time. Take away her interest in just talking to him, and he wasn't as certain about his chances for victory as he would have been otherwise; her losing the kid might make her less challenging, but this was possibly one occasion where he wouldn't mind having less opportunities to have fun in a fight.
"Oh yes…" Dru continued, staring up at the ceiling with an ever-widening smile on her face. "And then comes the surprise… a big surprise in a stone… the kind that can set a world ablaze and send millions of humans screaming into hell…"
Angelus raised an eyebrow at that last comment.
He had to admit, that definitely sounded interesting…
He'd like to see Paige and her sisters tackle something like that and still have time to deal with him.
AN: Firstly, sorry I didn't include the final battle between the ColeSource and the Charmed Ones, but really, apart from Paige kicking Cole about a bit more than she did in the show- the hand-to-hand training she got from Angel is definitely effective at its job- it all worked out the same way as it did in the original episode. However, as a consolation for the lack of combat here, next chapter, we jump over the events of 'Womb Raider'- thanks to Dru, Angelus knew what was going to happen while the Seer's visions tended to neglect the little detail of her death, so he didn't really do anything during that particular fight- and go straight to "Witch Way Now", where the Charmed Ones not only have to face the Angel of Death, but also have to deal with the oh-so-minor issues of Alcathla, as well as the appearance of a very particular BtVS character…
(And no, it's NOT Willow- in this reality Buffy never manifested as the Slayer, so Willow never had an opportunity to learn about her witchy potential- but more than that, I'm not going to say right now)