Chapter Three of Naissance Du Loup

Author: Ori

Spoilers: All of Wolf Lake, Up to Sam I Am on Charmed at this point, later chapters will include info from later episodes.

Disclaimer: Unfourtantely neither shows are mine. If they were mine, Piper and Paige would get the respect they deserve. I would also save Tyler from referring to himself as a thug and the whole John thing J.

Dedication. The first three chapters of Naissance Du Loup are dedicated to my beta, Rae, who I can not thank enough for being the help that she is to me. I couldn't have posted it without her. A round of applause for her. Thank you again Rae.

Author's Notes: This series, a crossover between Wolf Lake and Charmed, begain in my head one weekend after a marothan reading event of Sigma's Ties that Bind, Sapphira's Virtual Series Season One, Gidgetgirls' Her Mother's Daughter and watching the Charmed episode Sam I am. Needless to say what started out as a simple 15 chapter story has grown into a 4 inch binder containing plot outline, enough research printed out to choke a horse (trees fear me), chapters finished and unfinished. If the story goes into plan it will be divided into five increments that I hope everyone enjoys reading as much as I enjoy writing.

This chapter explains how the Charmed Ones are connected to Sophia. I am interested in what everyone thinks about me explanation.

Dualism

            Paige Matthews was hyperventilating.  A charge.  Her first real charge.  Her father, Sam, didn't count because she was only supposed to lead him back to his path as a whitelighter.  But this girl, Sophia, would be a constant presence in her life.  Paige wasn't ready to be a whitelighter, what if she scarred this girl for life?  She could accidentally turn off Sophia's magic faster than Paige's eighth grade teacher turned her off algebra.  Paige only hoped that she could follow in Leo's footsteps and be as good a friend and mentor as he is.

            Marie nearly smiled at Paige's visible stress.  You could see the mental wheels turning; Paige was the right whitelighter for her daughter.

            "Paige, calm down."  Marie's voice shocked Paige out of her reverie.

            "I'm sorry.  It's just…"

            "Huge, I know."  Marie smiled, her first true smile in what felt like years.  "My first charge was nerve wrecking, but it gets…" she struggled for a word.  There were times when even posthumous knowledge failed you.

            "Easier?"  Paige supplied.

            "No.  You will always feel pressure to protect your charges; it is what keeps you on the right path.  Allowing it to overwhelm you will not help my daughter, or any of your other future charges."

            "Your daughter?"  Marie had just told her that she was an upper level whitelighter who was assigning Paige her charge.

            "Do you know what a seraphim is?"

            "One of the highest orders of Angels.  They are described in the book of Revelations, and considered to beings enflamed by love."

            "Catechism?" Marie asked and Paige nodded.  "In some ways you are right, but in the Whitelighter Hierarchy Seraphim's are former witches who had been gifted with some form of the sight in their lives."

            "So you were once..."

            "A witch," Marie said.  "I married a very special man whom I loved dearly.  Matt knew about my magic and he accepted it.  We had a daughter, Sophia, who I knew was important, but not in the way I once thought she would be.  She inherited my mother's powers of dominion over the elements."  Paige jolted when Marie described Sophia's power because it had been one of her powers in a past life.  "That is my gift to her. but her father heritage is also powerful.  Matt is a skinwalker."

            "A person who is able to slip between animal and human shape."

            "Yes, but I died when she was eight, and since then Sophia has rejected her magic.  Matt, in a misguided attempt to protect his daughter, encouraged Sophia to repress both sides of her nature.  Out of fear and an attempt to please her father, she tried to follow his wishes.  Last night she finally lost the battle and flipped."

            "Flipped?"  As a witch Paige had seen some weird and amazing things, but the only other witch with a dual nature that she knew of was herself.

            "She switched forms for the first time, meaning that from now on she will be unable to deny her true natures.  She is wolven and she is a witch.  She needs to accept that, no matter how painful it is.  Your job is to help her accept her natures.

            "I don't mean to second guess you, but why me?  Why not a whitelighter who has more experience?"

            "Because you can understand her in a way that a traditional whitelighter can't.  Sophia isn't just a witch and neither are you."

            "But what if I am not ready?"  Paige hated the fact that she sounded like she was whining, but the responsibility of having a charge was sinking in.

            "You are.  Paige, close your eyes."  Paige complied.  "Do you feel that pull, the confusion and power tugging at you?  The need to which you are called to respond?"

            Paige nodded.  "You feel Sophia.  She needs you, and, if only for that reason, you have to be ready.  It is what you were preparing for.  When it became apparent that Sophia could no longer deny who she was, I went to the elders and suggested that you become her whitelighter.  I knew what even the most traditional elders couldn't deny:  as Warren witches, you and Sophia are too important in the scheme of things."

            Paige found herself responding to Marie's pep talk, but the last sentence blew her away.  Before Marie could continue, Paige's older sister, Piper, walked into the bedroom.

            "Paige where did you put the dried mugwort?  Sorry, I didn't know you had company."  Piper froze in place.  She recognized the other woman as someone she knew in her childhood, before everything went crazy.  "Marie?"

            "Hello Piper."

            "Wait.  You know her?" Paige asked.

            "Yeah, she was a friend of mom's."

            "You knew my mother?" Paige asked Marie.

            "Your mother was my best friend."  Marie smiled as she remembered the beautiful Patty Halliwell.

            "Marie was our favorite aunt who..."  Piper trailed off her original line of thought, realizing something.  "Who died eight years ago."

            "And became a whitelighter."

            "So you were a witch?"  Piper knew her mother had practiced magic, but every now and then she remembered her mother had been more than the mother of the Charmed Ones.

            "I was more than a witch, I was a descendent of Melinda Warren's."

            "And that brings me back to my question," Paige interrupted.  "How?"

            Marie sighed.  Revealing the truth was always difficult, though she supposed she could consider this practice for telling Sophia.  "Get Phoebe and meet us in the conservatory."  Paige and Marie left the room in a swirl of blue-white light, leaving behind a shocked Piper.

            "Phoebe," Piper called as she left the room to look for her other sister.

            A few minutes later, Marie, the Halliwell sisters, and Leo, Piper's husband and the Charmed Ones' whitelighter, were gathered in the conservatory.  Phoebe studied the woman she vaguely remembered as the "Aunt" who sent sketches for her birthday.

            "You know who Melinda Warren is, of course?" Marie asked to begin her tale.

            "The founder of the Charmed line.  She was a witch who had the power to freeze time, see the future, and move objects using her mind.  After being betrayed by her lover, a warlock by the name of Matthew Tate, she was hanged for being a witch.  However, she made sure her daughter Prudence..." Phoebe trailed off as she felt a flash of pain for her lost sister, "would be cared for.  She also prophesied about three sisters who would become the most powerful witches of the Warren line."

            "That, for the most part, is correct," Marie stated.

            "What do you mean for the most part?" Piper asked, confused and slightly angered.  The past five years of her life had been insane, and not "for the most part."

            "Prudence Warren gave birth to twin daughters:  Abigail and Grace.  The first time she held her daughters, she had a premonition of hundreds of witches divided into two lines:  the descendents of her daughters.  You come from the Charmed Line, Grace's descendents.  But Abigail, though the not the firstborn, was also gifted.  She married a warlock from the coven she was raised in and gave birth to the first witch of the Blessed line."

            "Wait a minute, I read about the Blessed witches in the book.  They are powerful witches who are renowned for their knowledge of the craft and their understanding of the balance in the magical world," Paige broke in.  "The book said because of their knowledge and reverence they are blessed by the Powers, but it didn't mention that they were distantly related to us."

            "You weren't ready to know.  Besides being the Charmed Ones, you are the seventh generation of witches in the Warren line, as is Sophia.  The four of you are the most powerful witches ever born to the Warren line," Marie stated with a nod, indicating Piper's baby.

            "But why two lines?" asked the ever curious Phoebe.

            "Actually, most magical families contain two lines.  It's a way to make sure that the power doesn't die out," Leo spoke up for the first time.  "Usually the lines only interact on rare occasions."

            "This is an unusual case.  Did you notice that as you grew in power, the evil you fought did as well?"  The girls nodded.  "The universe, consisting of both good and evil, must maintain a balance between the two, and now that Sophia has come into her powers..."

            "Evil will grow stronger as the Warren line grows more powerful." Paige stated, truly understanding why she was going to Sophia's whitelighter.  The usual, traditional way of things wasn't going to work anymore.  The web of awareness that Marie had shown her suddenly flared.

            "Marie, Sophia is awake," Paige said, not exactly sure how she knew that.

            "Okay."  Marie stood up and the Halliwells followed suit.  "I have to go see my daughter."  Marie walked to Piper and placed her hand on Piper's stomach.  "This little one has amazing power, but so do you.  Don't forget it."  Nest she walked to Phoebe.  "Remember that love is always the greatest power."  Finally, she turned to Paige.  "Destiny made you my daughter's whitelighter.  Remember that."  She smiled at Paige as she orbed out.

            While the remaining occupants in the Halliwell house each felt a tumult of different emotions, there was one thought on everyone's mind:  things are about to get very interesting.

Spoilers for Chapter Four:
Matt and Ruby talk.

Sophia wakes up to a new world.

Please review.