Lots of notes this time:

Note #1: I'm so sorry for this awful delay! I know how frustrating it can be to be left hanging, but for some reason this chapter was very difficult to write. Anyway, here it is, and I'll try to upload chapter 10 faster.

Note #2: Due to a failure in my hard disk, I lost most of the messages in my inbox. So, to those of you who had written me and to whom I didn't answer, blame it on my computer. I may sometimes take a lot of time to answer my messages, but I always do.

Note #3: Yes, Falcon, I'm afraid this chapter is gonna be 'Answers 4' indeed. I never thought it would take me so long to explain everything, but now I'm finally done... for now.

Now, everyone, good reading! :-)

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Benjamin heard her chanting; she sounded unsure, pronouncing the words carefully and making long pauses between the verses, clearly unfamiliar with the craft, but her words went straight to his heart, her voice was like music to his sore soul.

When he materialized before her, Erzsebet stiffened and drew a sharp intake of breath.

"You called me," he said. Could a ghost feel his heart beating in his throat?

"I did. I... hum, I wasn't sure you'd come, though."

God, she looked so small and fragile!... Not the powerful demoness she was, just a petite woman fumbling nervously with the extra candle she had brought just in case.

"Of course I did," he said, softly.

She was so beautiful, just as beautiful as he remembered. But even in the dim light of the cabin they were in he could see the small things that only a lover would notice. Her skin lacked its usual bloom, there were subtle shadows under her eyes, and one of the hands toying with the black candle had a broken nail.

"What happened to you?" he asked.

"I'm a single parent now," she said, flatly, "and a working mother to boot."

"You know that's not what I meant. What happened that night? What did they do to you?"

"Does it matter now?" she asked, with an impatient wave of her hand.

But he could see right through her, and pushed gently:

"It matters to me. I know that wasn't you."

"Yes, it was," she retorted, sharply. "That was the real me, the one I had been bottling up for five years then, until it finally surfaced again."

She paused, then snorted:

"That was just stupid of us to think that it wouldn't happen at some point."

"Who did that to you?" he pursued, ignoring her bitter remark.

The candle in her hands was in some serious trouble now, being rolled fast and angrily between her fingers.

"A sorcerer; one of the Source's personal servants. The best one, if you must know."

Benjamin winced; even though he had expected something like that, it still hurt to think that a dark sorcerer had reached out her filthy hands towards his wife's soul. He took a deep breath and forced himself to ask:

"For how long had it been going on?"

"Oh, two months, three months," she said, angrily throwing her hands up. "How should I know?"

"Months?!?" he repeated, shocked. "Good heavens, Erzsebet, why didn't you tell me?"

"Like you hadn't enough on your mind! You had a campaign to run, for you had to leave San Francisco. Because of me." -- she started pacing back and forth the room, her speed increasing as her anger rose -- "People you had known for years didn't talk to you anymore. Because of me. You fought evil and you helped innocents, but you didn't have a Whitelighter to heal you, were you to get hurt. Because of me!" -- she tossed aside the broken remains of the candle and stared at him with blazing eyes -- "You paid the bills, you dealt with the repairman, you even taught me how to prepare a goddamned grocery shopping list. One would think I'd be able to handle that one thing by myself, instead of running to you at the first signs of trouble."

She paused to breathe, then muttered, bitterly:

"Then again, I was wrong."

Before he could recover from the shock, she said, flatly:

"Never mind, though: this is not why I called you here tonight. I need your help, Benjamin."

"Sure," he said, surprised. "Anything."

"You know people. I mean, good people. Good witches," she added with obvious unwillingness. "And Cole is half witch. If they're as good as you claim they are..."

He just stared at her, puzzled, as she proceeded:

"There must be someone on the, hum, other side... I mean, I haven't unbound his powers yet; the Source thinks it's just taking them more time to develop because he's half human. But you know that he has inherited your powers, and he's the last of your lineage; the Elders will want to make sure he's raised by Good... won't they?"

"Sure," he said excitedly, as he understood what she was asking him. "Yes, of course they will! I'll talk to them: I'm sure they can see that the two of you..."

"Him."

"What?" -- he blinked, dumbfounded.

"Him," she repeated, curtly. "I'm not crossing over again."

"You, ah, you..." he stammered. "No, you can't be serious."

"You can damn well believe I'm serious, Benjamin," she said, with a steely glint in her eyes. "Unbind just his witch powers if you will. Let them raise him as a witch, let them tell him I'm dead. I don't care: I want my son out of the Underworld."

Benjamin felt his heart sink as he saw Erzsebet's face harden and become expressionless. That's how she had looked seven years ago, when she had arrived at his house, sent by the Source of All Evil as one of his best assassins. Her eyes were cold; her face, a mask of stone. He could almost hear the sound of doors being shut and locks being fastened as she retreated to some dark recess of her soul, where he couldn't follow her.

"You want to... Do you understand what you're saying? You'd never see him again, how..."

"Save it, Benjamin," she cut him, sharply. "Just give me an answer: will you do it or not?"

His mind worked frantically, but it was difficult to think straight when he was struggling with panic. He was losing her; she was closing herself off, slowly yet inexorably slipping away from him.

"Cole needs you. For God's sake, he's just a little boy, he needs his mother!" he pleaded.

"Do I have to spell it out for you? He doesn't have a mother down there! Demons don't have mothers, demons have breeders."

"Please don't ask me to do this," he begged. "Please don't ask me to leave you behind."

"You're not leaving anyone behind, Benjamin," she said, coldly. "I'm staying in the Underworld of my own free will."

"Why?"

"Oh, for crying out loud!" she finally snapped. "What difference does it make? I'm staying, that's all! Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"Because you're my wife, damn it!"

"I'm your WIDOW!"

She paused, breathing heavily, then said it again, in a tired voice:

"I'm your widow. You promised to love me and to cherish me until death did us part: well, in case you haven't noticed, this" -- she pointed at the candles arranged in a circle around him -- "is death doing us part."

Benjamin opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say a word the world swirled and revolved around him as he was pulled backwards, into what felt like a cold, dark nothing. Raynor's voice would be the last thing he would hear in a long, long time:

"Congratulations, my child. You did a great job luring the witch here. Good for you that I happened to be on the surroundings, and arrived just in time to capture him. 'Cause that was your plan all along..." -- Raynor's voice held an ominous edge as he tipped Erzsebet's chin, making her look right into his eyes as he gave her the softest of smiles -- "... wasn't it?"

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A deathly silence fell over the room as Benjamin finished his story. It was so heavy and so sorrowful that it actually woke Ben up; the toddler half opened his eyes and whimpered, calling out for Phoebe:

"Mama!"

"Shh, that's okay, sweetie," she whispered, promptly standing up and taking him from Paige's arms. "Mommy is here, everything's okay."

She sat by Cole's side again, torn between the urge to comfort him and the almost physically aching need to hold her baby tight in her arms, not daring to try and picture the tearing pain of giving him up to keep him safe.

Benjamin had his shoulders slumped, staring at his feet with a look of infinite sadness. When he finally spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper:

"If I had done what your mother was asking me, taken you out of the Underworld then..."

"She'd be as good as dead," Cole said, somberly.

"Yes, she would," Benjamin admitted, with a sigh.

He knew it, and he was thankful that Cole understood, but it hurt to think that he had been so close to rescuing his son from the Underworld, and had failed.

"I don't know how she convinced the Source to accept you two back in the Underworld," Benjamin proceeded, "but I'm sure that you were a crucial part of the deal. Without you, she'd have been just another demon, and one who had already betrayed the Source once. He'd never have let her get away with that, no matter what story she told him to justify your disappearance."

"She knew that," Cole said. "I mean, she had to know. Mother was never one to delude herself." -- he gave his father a perplexed look -- "Then why wouldn't she...?"

"Cross over again?" -- Benjamin waved his head -- "That'd have meant hope. And forgiveness. Lots of things she wasn't ready to do, like giving up on her revenge."

"Revenge? You mean, against the Source?"

"Against herself. By providing that you were raised by Good and facing the subsequent wrath of the Source, your mother would be saving you, but also punishing the demoness that had killed her husband and taken her son to the Underworld."

"And when that failed, she embraced damnation," Cole said, shuddering. "You guessed right; it happened almost two years after your death."

"You said you mother had never told you," Benjamin said, confused.

"She didn't. But she changed; she changed overnight." -- Cole sighed and rubbed his temples -- "She became harsher, and colder. I still remember how she came home one night with a haunted look in her eyes. She said that she didn't feel well, and that she'd go to bed earlier. The next day she unbound my powers, and then she started to train me."

As he felt Phoebe snuggling with him, Cole put his arm around her shoulders, but his mind was somewhere else. Now that he thought about that, he wondered how he could have been so blind. He had witnessed his mother's downfall after she had given up all hope; yet, when he had gone down that same path, he hadn't recognized it. He had known the bitter despair, the cold feeling of emptiness that had made him feel dead inside, but he had failed to recognize in the mirror the forlorn look that haunted his mother's eyes even when she laughed.

Cole subconsciously held Phoebe tighter as the memories of that night in the attic flooded him once again. He had killed an innocent, while Phoebe pleaded with him through the ajar door, begging him to open the door and let her help him. That had hurt her as badly as if it had been her, instead of Jenna, who had been struck by the energy ball: she had put her faith in him, against everyone's best advice, and he hadn't lived up to her trust and her love. In the days that had followed his return to the Underworld, he had hated her for having given him hope, and Raynor for having taken it away from him, but most of all he had hated himself for having dared to believe. You fool, he had thought then. Who did you think you were fooling? You don't belong with them, you never did. You don't belong anywhere but here. Forever.

"She never unbound my witch powers, though," he said, almost to himself.

"If she had done that, you'd now be half demon, half warlock," Benjamin said. "Your mother made sure there would be a way out for you, would you ever want to cross over."

Cole nodded in silence.

"So, there was a time when she actually wanted me to be good," he muttered. He felt his head spin: that was a whole lot to learn in just one evening.

"Son," Benjamin said, placing his hand on Cole's shoulder and cutting off his musings, "I think you've had enough for today. You now know the main facts about your past, and you're in need for some rest. All of you are," he added, with a look that encompassed everyone in the room. "Even I feel spent, and I'm already dead."

"You didn't ask me how mother is," Cole said, out of the blue.

"No, I didn't," Benjamin said, quietly. "I don't... I don't know anything that happened from the day I was imprisoned until today, except for a few glimpses that I was able to catch from that dimension you sent me to. I guess I was hoping you'd say something, so that I wouldn't have to actually ask you this: is your mother...?" -- he left the question hanging, as if by saying it out loud he might jinx it.

"Alive? Yes. But she's, uh..."

"Still in the Underworld."

Cole nodded. He reached out and gently fondled Ben's hair, saying:

"She was at our house a couple of weeks ago, though."

Benjamin gave him an interrogative look and he explained:

"Ben was kidnapped by, uh, this demoness I knew. We were trying spells to bring him back, and one of them sort of summoned mother."

"Oh." -- Benjamin arched his eyebrows. -- "I see. And, did she already know that you had switched sides?"

"Yes. She didn't exactly look thrilled, but she helped us anyway: she brought Ben back from the Underworld... and then she left again."

"Just brought him back and left right away?"

"Well, no," Cole said, shrugging. "She yelled at me a little before she left."

"Now, that sounds more like your mother." -- Benjamin had a small smile on his lips, and Cole couldn't help but smile along with him.

"So, she's still in the Underworld..." Benjamin sighed.

"Yes," Cole said.

He watched his father hesitantly, and Benjamin answered the question he didn't dare to ask:

"Son, you come from a long line of stubborn men. Turners don't give up that easily."

"Gee, who would have thought..." Phoebe muttered with mock surprise, cracking a smile from Cole.

"I have a few things to sort out up there, but..." Benjamin started to say.

Just then, Leo stood up, grimacing. As the others looked at him, he said:

"That's okay, I'll just tell the Elders..."

"No, you're not telling them anything," Benjamin said, firmly, as he, too, stood up. "You've already done more than enough, Leo. I'm going with you, and I'll talk to the Elders myself while you come back here and go home with your family."

"You're leaving? Already?" Cole said, jumping to his feet.

"Well, yes," Benjamin said. "I'll have to talk to the Elders sooner or later, and I might as well do it while you and your family have a much needed night of sleep. You can summon me later, but for now I want you to eat something and go to bed."

"But the Elders... the rules... what if they don't let you..." -- Cole felt a hint of panic at the idea of losing his father again.

"Son," Benjamin said, giving him a reassuring smile, "I married a demoness. The rules didn't stop me then, and they won't stop me now." -- he pulled Cole to his arms again and held him tight -- "Just call me. I'll be there for you if you need me, I promise."

Cole clung to him, and Benjamin patiently waited until he felt his son relax, before pulling away and repeating, looking straight into his eyes:

"Just call me."

Cole managed to smile as he nodded, and watched in silence as his father shook hands with Piper and Paige. When Benjamin stood before Phoebe he hesitated, then leaned down and kissed her forehead, cupping her face in his hand and saying:

"I'll never be able to thank you enough."

He gently kissed the top of Ben's head, smiling as the boy mumbled in his sleep and curled in Phoebe's arms, then turned to Leo and said:

"Let's go."

"Honey," Leo said, turning to Piper, "will you wait for me here, or would you rather go to the hotel?"

"Well, we'll have to do something about Aunt Helen's notes," Piper reasoned. "Either take them with us or destroy them, so that no one else will fall for the same trap. I guess you'd better meet us here. I mean," she added, looking at the others, "unless you'd rather do it tomorrow before we leave Coleville. I for one would rather get it over with now and never enter this house again."

"Same here," said Cole.

"Amen," Phoebe and Paige said in one voice.

"Okay, then," Leo said, placing his hand on Benjamin's shoulder. "I'll be right back."

Both men disappeared in a swirl of blue lights, and for a moment the others just stood there, staring at each other in a tired silence. Finally, Piper broke the silence, saying:

"Paige, let's go to the library and see if there's something else there. Cole, Phoebe, you can start sorting out the contents of this drawer, see what we should keep and what is good for the fire."

As they started to work, at first they were moving a little clumsily, like people who had just woke up from a deep sleep; slowly, as they talked to each other and walked from the living room to the library, and back to the living room, watching as the notes were consumed by the fire or pilled up inside a cardboard box Cole found in the kitchen, they started to feel more like themselves again. When Leo orbed back, twenty minutes later, he found them gathered in the living room, discussing who was going straight to the hotel and who was going to stop by Sierra Retreat Pizza to buy dinner.

"So," Leo said, "are we ready?"

"Definitely," said Paige, promptly standing up.

When Cole gave him an inquisitive look, Leo said, with a smile:

"I wouldn't worry about your father if I were you: the Elders looked quite happy to see him. As long as he can survive some lecturing, he'll be just fine. And because of the rather specific quality of your powers, your father was granted permission to show up on a regular basis until you get a grip on them."

Leo was glad to see Cole's smile of relief, because he was pretty sure his next announcement would be considered rather unsettling, even though it wasn't a bad thing per se.

"The Elders brought up something else," he said, looking at Cole and Phoebe. "You see, since the Halliwell powers are passed only to their daughters, we never bothered to bind Ben's powers."

All eyes were immediately turned towards Ben, who was sound asleep in his mother's arms, peacefully sucking his thumb.

"Oh..." Phoebe uttered, after a few seconds. "So, Ben has inherited Cole's powers?"

"Yes. But there's more." -- Leo scratched his head -- "Since his powers weren't bound when he was born, you can't just bind them now. And before any of you ask, no, it has nothing to do with the rules, it's just..." -- he shrugged -- "the way these things work."

"And how exactly do these things work?" Cole asked, warily.

"Well, you'll have to wait until his powers start to develop before you can bind them."

"Leo, should I remind you that his powers include controlling fire?" Phoebe said, arching her eyebrows.

"I know, Phoebe, but Benjamin said that he wouldn't start with fire: he'll probably start with water or air, and you can bind his powers before he gets to fire."

Cole and Phoebe exchanged a worried look: even without magic, Ben was already becoming quite a handful as he took his first steps and started to show the first signs of the not so docile Halliwell-Turner temper.

"Well," Phoebe sighed, "I guess that settles the discussion on whether he should go to daycare or not."

Cole chuckled slightly, and leaned down to kiss her forehead. He helped her stand up with Ben, then put her purse on top of the cardboard box and picked up the box. Piper and Paige took their purses, too, and then everybody walked to the door. Only when Leo opened the door did they remember the snow: even though the storm had stopped a good two hours ago, the snow was still there, blocking the way.

"Ugh!" Piper said, grimacing. "Leo, Can we make it go away? I mean, since Anthony and Frederick created the snow with magic, it's okay for us to make it disappear with magic, too, isn't it?"

"Maybe Cole can melt it," Paige said, walking past Leo and Piper and giving the snow a critical look.

Cole was clearly not keen of the idea, but before he could answer, Leo broke in:

"Why don't you just cast a spell? I think Cole should give his powers a rest, and... What?" -- he gave Paige's amused smile an intrigued look.

"The guy has been a witch for less than three hours, and you already treat him like he's one of your... Oh, my God!" -- she opened her eyes wide and covered her mouth with her hand -- "Cole is one of your charges, isn't he? That's what the Elders wanted to say to you up there!"

"What?!?" Cole said, as he and Phoebe joined the others outside the house. "I have a Whitelighter?" -- he gave Leo a shocked look -- "You're my Whitelighter now?"

"Oh well," Leo sighed, shrugging. "The Elders think there'd be no point in assigning two Whitelighters to the same house and... Paige, will you stop?"

"I'm no longer the newbie! I'm no longer the newbie!" Paige was lilting as she jumped up and down.

"Why do I need a Whitelighter?" Cole muttered, scowling. "I don't want a Whitelighter."

Leo rolled his eyes, but Piper and Phoebe could barely hold their laughter as Paige started to do her "happy dance". He sighed heavily and said to Piper:

"This is how the rest of my life is gonna be, isn't it?"

Piper finally went to her husband's help and took a few steps towards Paige, taking her by the ear and making her stop. Paige protested indignantly, even though Piper wasn't really twisting her ear. She tried to get free, but Piper waved a finger on her face and said, as sternly as possible, considering she was fighting laughter:

"Behave."

Cole opened his mouth to say something, but she added, pointing at him:

"And I mean both of you. Leo and I are about to be the parents of a newborn baby, not two teenagers."

"I wasn't..." Cole started to protest, but Phoebe elbowed him and he just gave Paige an annoyed look.

Then, as Piper let go of Paige's ear, Phoebe cast a spell that made the snow disappear, leaving the path clear.

"Honey," Leo said to Piper, "why don't you go to the hotel with Phoebe, Cole and Ben, while Paige and I go get us some food?"

Piper opened her mouth to object, but he said, with feign sternness:

"Listen, I may be the one feeling all the nasty symptoms, but you can't forget that you're almost eight months pregnant. You've had a full day, and so has Melinda. Go have some rest, will you?"

"Okay," she sighed. "But make sure you buy some ice cream for you," she added, pinching his cheek playfully.

"You bet," he said, smiling. "Tons of it."

With that, Piper followed Phoebe and Cole towards the Buick, while Leo opened the passenger door of their car and sat by Paige's side.