Well, here's the next installment. After reading your reviews I just had to write another chapter. I can't let my readers down, can I? This one's longer too, but it could also raise certain questions, feel free to ask me anything. Hope you like it!

Oh, by the way: keep the reviews coming! The more reviews I get, the quicker I'll post the next chapter!

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Chapter 3: A bit of Storytelling

"What!" exclaimed Paige, "That's ridiculous! Right, Phoebe?"

"I think I'd know if Phoebe had a daughter!" said Piper. "Who are you and what do you want?"

The calm, family scene that had taken place only minutes ago in the kitchen was shattered, and what little normal time the Haliwells had had this morning, was gone.

The room erupted into a cacophony of surprise, disbelief and indignation at the absurdity of the statement the newcomer had uttered. The only people who were completely silent were the very centers of this maelstrom. Phoebe and Talia stood in the middle of this chaos, their eyes locked, focused on nothing but each other.

"Leo, what the hell is going on here?" Piper's voice rose above the noise.

"I don't know anything about this, honey, I promise. But I could go up there and ask the other elders if you want."

"You bet I want! This is a family crisis, so get your butt up there and clear this out!"

"Guys, guys, please, let's just let Talia explain, shall we? Leo, I want you to hear this too. You can go check with the elders later" said Phoebe as calmly as she could. As far as she knew, she'd never given birth. Sure, she had become pregnant by the Source once -

But that couldn't possibly be it, could it? The child she had been carrying had died before it was even born. And it had taken out the Seer and the Evil Council in the process. That child was gone. She'd even mourned for it! It had after all been hers and Cole's baby... She sighed at the thought of him, then focused her attention on the matter at hand.

So, Talia couldn't possibly be her daughter. Right? Right. But as she looked in those eyes, so similar to her own, she found herself wanting to believe that this girl, really was her daughter...

For the first time since Talia made her startling announcement, Phoebe noticed the girl's age. She looked to be around sixteen. Sixteen years ago and, in what seemed like a different lifetime, Phoebe had been married to Cole. She had become pregnant with his child. If there was the remotest chance that Talia was telling the truth, then Phoebe had to know.

"Please, sit down," she said kindly. "We're listening."

Piper, Paige, Wyatt and Leo followed suit, all thoughts of school and work forgotten. This was more important than all that. This was family.

"I guess, this must be a bit of a shock to all of you," said Talia nervously.

"Err, yeah!" retorted Paige sarcastically.

Phoebe threw an annoyed glance at her younger sister. It was enough to silence her.

"Go on, Talia," she then said with an encouraging smile.

Talia swallowed and took a deep breath before embarking on her story.


"Sixteen years ago, you, Phoebe, were married to a half-mortal, half-demon called Cole Turner, also known as the upper level demon Belthazor. In your battle with the old Source and in order to protect you, he took the Hollow, and... well, as you all know, this resulted to the transfer of the Source's powers to him, so that Cole Turner, became the new Source.

"Then you... became pregnant with Cole's child; the Source's child...

"From what I understand, the story ended for you when the Seer stole your unborn baby through magical means and the baby ended up destroying the Seer, the Evil Council and itself in a, rather spectacular, explosion that had both sides stunned."

Talia paused for a while and studied the carpet between her feet. So far, she hadn't told them anything they didn't know.

"But although you have, until now, thought that that was the end of it all, it was in fact just the beginning of a whole different story, because you see... that child survived. It was brought to this world and it grew up."

She took one more deep breath.

"That child is me."

Talia looked at the faces of the people around her. Shock was written on all of them.

"Paige, right?" she asked the redhead who sat in the chair opposite her with her mouth hanging wide open.

"Ye-es," she replied carefully.

"What happened when you vanquished Cole after he became the new Source?"

"He... ended up in the Demonic Wasteland.

"There, he not only survived, but he somehow managed to gain a bunch of powers, and then came back stronger than ever and hell-bent on getting Phoebe back."

"Why didn't he die in the Demonic Wasteland, just like any other vanquished demon?" prompted Talia.

"Because he was half-demon and half-human. And humans don't come to any harm in the Demonic Wasteland when they enter it. Once they get in of course, there are all sorts of dangers that they have to face to survive, but Cole survived all that," interjected Leo.

"Exactly!" said Talia getting slightly excited. "You must be Leo, Piper's husband. You are an Elder, correct? Help me out here. You see, when the Seer stole me from my mother, I may have still been unborn at the time, but I had already been created, I was alive. Had I been killed or vanquished, I'd still have to go somewhere, right?"

Leo nodded.


"For something to be alive, it has to have a life essence. Even unborn babies have a life essence. No matter how far along the pregnancy is," Leo explained to the Haliwells.

"But if this baby has, what you call, a life essence, then it can die too, right? And that baby did die. The three of us saw it," said Piper.

Talia made a grimace in an effort to explain.


"It's not so much as dying... as it is vanquishing. What you saw was me vanquishing everything that would want to hurt me within a certain radius, destroying myself in the process. I don't understand, or remember it for that matter, myself really, but the best guess anyone has come up with was that what I did, I did as, well, self defense. But, like I said earlier, I am both Cole's and Phoebe's daughter. Half-witch and half-demon, and just like Cole, my life essence ended up, intact, in the Demonic Wasteland."

"But how could an unborn child fight the dangers of the Wasteland? Surely, if you're telling the truth Phoebe's baby couldn't have survived."

Talia smiled softly at Paige and Piper who was nodding her head vigorously.

"I was lucky. My father recognized my life essence and rescued me from that thing down there."

***************

Cole sat dejectedly on a pile of rocks amidst what seemed to be a never ending sea of sand. Grimy sweat ran in rivulets down his body from the heat of an invisible sun. Nothing ever changed in the Wasteland. There was no difference between day and night and Cole had lost track of time, what seemed like eons ago.

Only one thing had kept him going down here for so long. It was the memory of long cinnamon hair and big brown eyes, the memory of the feel of silky-soft skin against his own, the memory of a soft voice whispering 'I love yous' in the dark...

The Wasteland 'sky' exploded with light. Cole looked up in surprise. Vanquished demons fell from the sky like rain; like a meteorite shower. Cole stood up. In all his time here, he had never seen anything like it!

What could possibly have happened to result to so many demons being vanquished at the same time?

Cole looked around him trying to understand what was happening. The life essences that bombarded the Wasteland were unusually bright. Cole had come to the conclusion that the brighter the life essence was, the more powerful the demon vanquished. He guessed that all these demons must have been upper-level demons. He knew of no one, not even the Charmed Ones, that could vanquish so many powerful demons at the same time. He rose to his feet and stared out at the sand in awe. And that's when he saw it.

A bundle of energy, of brighter life essence than any he had even seen before, sparkled like a star amidst the others. He was drawn to it. He didn't know why, but he was drawn to it. He scanned the horizon for the creature that lived in the sand to devour the lost souls that arrived here. The creature hadn't shown up yet. The life essence beckoned him and he felt strangely inclined to follow its call. Tentatively, Cole put one foot on the sand then quickly put it back on the rock. At the most, he had no more than a couple of minutes before the creature he had grown to hate with passion, would arrive. Frantically he looked around for something to capture the essence in and that's when he remembered the little potion bottle he had discovered in his trouser pocket when he had arrived here.

Cole had always been in the habit of putting things he carried in his pockets and then forgetting about them. Phoebe had always teased him about this. He had no idea, how the little empty vial ended up in his pocket, but now, he was glad it had.

He looked at his target one more time and made a dash for it. He was halfway there when he heard the strangely echoing, thundering noise that signified the arrival of the creature. He continued his mad dash along the sand with his heart in his throat. He had grown to fear that creature more than he had ever feared anything else in his life.

He reached the life essence that was his target just when the creature exploded out of the sand a few meters away from him. He shoved the open vial in the middle of the glowing mist and, as if drawn to it, the mist flew inside the bottle immediately. The creature lunged at him a split moment after Cole placed the stopper securely on the mouth of the vial. He managed to dodge the gaping, snarling mouth that sought to engulf him just on time.

He ran.

He ran for his life, whatever was left of it, he ran for Phoebe and he ran for the strange, unknown life essence he carried tightly clutched in his fist. He barely managed to make it on the pile of rocks before the creature made him its next meal!

He sat panting on the rocks. He was safe.

The creature, realizing that Cole was out of his reach, continued its task of consuming the rest of the life essences that shone on the sandy plain.

Cole wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. He looked into the vial curiously. He nearly dropped it when he did.

"Phoebe?" he whispered hoarsely.

But the flicker of the smiling face in the swirling mist inside the vial, was gone even as he had spoken, to be replaced by a picture of his own face, serious and gruff. Cole frowned and tried to look closer... and all of a sudden he knew! He didn't know how he knew, but he had a strange feeling that the life essence in the vial that rested in the palm of his hand, had something to do with it; the life essence of his own child!

***************

"He used his powers to get me out of the Wasteland when he got out. You remember the Grimoire?"

Talia saw a few nods to her answer so she continued.

"When my father got his new powers, it wasn't all that hard to locate it.

"Following the directions of the book, he locked my essence in The Crystal Of Life, a magical crystal of unique and incredible powers, which he again found with the help of the Grimoire. And in there I stayed until I was ready to come out. When the time came, I was "born", for want of a better word, from that crystal.

"I don't remember any this of course, but it's what my father told me."

"But Cole is dead!" said Paige. "Even if we assume that what you've just told us is true, Cole can't have told you any of that because we vanquished him in that alternate reality, where I didn't exist."

Talia smirked.


"Paige, just how many times did you guys try to kill my father? Didn't you think that vanquishing him in that alternate reality was just a little bit too easy? When you vanquished him in that reality all that happened was that he returned back to this reality, alive and kicking!"

"But we never saw him again after that. We just assumed - "

Talia didn't give Paige the chance to finish her sentence.

"Yes, you assumed. The truth is that I was "born" right after that. My father finally gave up on my mother ever coming back to him, concentrated on raising me and... well, let's just say that he found different goals to pursue..."


Talia looked at Phoebe sadly. If Phoebe knew that Cole was, once again, the Source, who knows what would happen? Talia knew that a happy, "normal" family was never meant for her, but of course that didn't mean that she never wished for it with all her heart….

The living room where they all sat was silent for the first time since Talia entered it.

"Honey," said Piper as she turned to face Leo, "Now would be a good time for you to check with the other Elders on Talia's story."

A glimmer of gold lights appeared and Leo orbed out.

Phoebe turned to face Talia. "Morning dew," she said softly.

"What?" said Paige, puzzled as to her sister's meaning behind those words.

They were the first words Phoebe had uttered since Talia began her story telling. She had remained silent through it all, taking it all in.

"Morning dew," she repeated. "Your name, it means morning dew," she said hardly believing the very words she was saying.

"Yes it does," said Talia surprised.

~ "For centuries I lived in the darkness of the night.

And then you came.

My very own sunrise, you brought me to the light.

All lit up like heaven,

As soft as butterflies,

Your kisses like morning dew." ~

That's when Phoebe knew that Talia was indeed her daughter. That all she had said was true. Cole was alive. And she had a daughter. Cole's daughter. The beautiful girl sitting next to her that was nervously toying with the end of her shirt, was her own flesh and blood.

Leo's words of confirmation of Talia's story came only as an afterthought.

A/N: I wasn't really happy with this chapter from the moment I had written it but I just didn't know what I should do with it. I couldn't sleep tonight, so I thought I'd tackle it and this is what I've come up with. I've only just added the scene with Cole and I must say I'm very pleased with it! Let me know what you think!