Disclaimer: I do not own Charmed or any of the characters.
The future of the world rests on the shoulders of... Cole
One Last Chance
Abraham called for silence. He informed everyone to watch the all the memories, and that he would answer questions at the end.
And into the looking glass, they dove:
x x x
January 13th, 1898: Age 0
A crying baby entered the world. He opens his bright, blue eyes to see a blonde-haired woman looking down at him. "I shall call him Coleridge, after his father." The seductress demon known as Elizabeth looked into the eyes of Cole's father and smiled.
Benjamin Turner smiled back. He turned to a woman in the corner. The woman was beautiful - brown, curly hair; blue eyes; great smile - the perfect woman. But she wasn't smiling - no - she was crying. She was mourning something, or maybe someone. But what?
Maybe the boy...
Maybe she knew what he was getting himself into. Just maybe...
But then, if she did, why wouldn't she try and save him? Was she good or evil?
But she was going to save him - or she would die trying...
Benjamin Turner handed the brand-new baby boy over to the woman in the corner. He had called the woman by name: Dana. The baby stopped crying once the woman was holding him. He felt a sense of security with this 'Dana'.
"Leave the room," Benjamin, then, commanded.
When Dana and Coleridge left the room, Benjamin pulled out a knife. The blade was diamond, the hardest existing mineral. It could cut cleanly through practically anything. The handle was crystal with blue trim forming to make an interesting design. It was a crest. It was one of a witch's coven.
It was a coven symbol of the Turner witches, as the triquetra for the Halliwells, but not the same. The Turner emblem was more like three diamond shapes connect at points; two were touching each other horizontally across while one came down from the center, forming a "T".
The diamond blade penetrated Elizabeth thirty times before her life slipped away from her.
x x x
December 24th, 1906: Age 7
"Oh," Dana writhed in pain. Benjamin was beating her again - Cole could hear it through the walls in his room - they weren't insulated well. He could hear his step mom cry out in complete helplessness.
Coleridge Turner was seven, now. And it was as if he'd reached his teenage years early. He hated his father. His father was constantly beating Dana; and if Cole got in the way, Benjamin didn't mind hitting him as well.
Benjamin had no problem with having violence in the house. He didn't mind cheating on his wife, Dana, with a demon - the result of a bastard half human, half demon child. In fact, just to keep Dana, he had to name Cole after her. Dana was his middle name. Yeah - Coleridge Dana Turner - and Cole didn't mind being named after her; he loved his step mother as if she were his own. It was being named 'Coleridge' that hurt him.
Coleridge - his father's middle name. So it was:
Coleridge Dana Turner, the son of Benjamin Coleridge Turner and Elizabeth... well, demons don't usually have last names...
There she went again. Cole could hear his step mom's cries. He couldn't stand it.
"Stop it!" he yelled from the stairs. He was so pissed off that he had run from his room to the bottom of the stairs.
His father hesitated at first - but only because his son's words had startled him; he hadn't known he was there - but slapped her again just for the hell of it.
"No!" This time, Cole took action. He leapt forward to protect his mother - step or not - she was his mother, and he wasn't going to let her be abused anymore. And because he didn't want her to, he ended up being knocked unconscious.
"Benjamin, how dare you! He is our son! You don't treat our other children like this!"
"Our other children have enough sense to stay out of the way," Benjamin screamed at her.
"On Christmas Eve? It's a wonder why the boy doesn't like this holiday," Dana recalled.
"You don't see Avril and Christopher acting like this, do you? No, I didn't think so! The boy is half demon. He should be strong and powerful, and instead, he's weak - good." Benjamin spat on his unconscious first-born child.
"Chris and Avril are three years old. I don't want you to be around any of our children anymore, nor me! And I'm not going to let you relinquish the witch in him!"
Cole shook himself awake.
"It's not your decision; he's not your son!" Benjamin continued, "And I'll leave when I'm good and ready to!"
"Go to hell!" Cole screamed.
A seven-year old boy just told off his father. Benjamin stormed off into his own bedroom, slamming the door.
Dana picked up who, to her, was her son. She carried him into the kitchen, got a cold rag, and placed it on a huge bump on Cole's forehead. "Bless your heart, child," Dana said. "It's okay, now. He won't be hurting you soon."
"But Mother, I don't want him to ever come back!" he told with his thick Australian accent.
"He's your father. You might not be able to tell, but you love him - unconditionally. Do you know what that means?"
"Yes, Mom, I do. You know that I'm a child prodigy, and you also know that what he's doing to you isn't right. We need to get out of here! We don't need him!"
"Now, now, only a truly evil person would leave their family on Christmas," Dana remarked.
"He's not family! He's a traitor!"
"Coleridge Dana Turner, I don't care who you think you are or who you think he is, but you will not treat your father like that."
"How can you say that after what he's done to you!"
She sighed. It was no use. The kid was a genius; she couldn't fool him with this 'mother-comfort' talk. She looked at him and decided to treat him like an adult. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"I was about to ask you the same thing," her son replied.
She smiled weakly. It was cute that he was all 'grown up' and taking care of her.
"We're all - I mean, I'm fine," Dana replied.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I'm fine..."
"You said 'We're all'."
"Did I, now? Wow, I must've been mistaken."
"Mother," Cole demanded. "What's going on?"
"As long as you don't tell your father that I told you first, I guess it's okay to tell you." Cole nodded to her in affirmation that he'd keep her secret. "I'm pregnant. One month. It's... different, but I'll get through it."
"You know... that it is twins..."
"Yeah, I know. It runs in the family, right? The first born is by itself; the next litter is twins; and the next twins - although, I don't know what the next is, do you?"
"No; the moms haven't lived long enough," Cole replied softly yet firmly.
She sighed.
"I'll help you, Mommy." That made her smile.
"Cole, make me a promise?"
"Yeah; what?" he asked.
"Promise me that you'll save yourself for the one you love."
"I promise. I won't have sex until I think I could spend the rest of my life with her."
His father entered the room. "Coleridge, I need to speak with you... alone." Dana took a hint, and feeling sore from the abuse earlier, she didn't want anymore. Plus, she knew Benjamin would only hurt Cole if he got in the way of him and Dana. And Cole couldn't get in the way if Dana wasn't there.
"Cole, sit."
Cole sat down at the kitchen table.
"I need to tell you something important - about whom you really and truly are." Benjamin explained to his son how he came from a long line of Turner witches. Aside from descendants of a woman by the last name of Warren, his family was the strongest. Benjamin failed to mention Belthazor, in the scheme of things...
When Benjamin was through explaining, there was an awkward silence until Cole finally spoke up. "I don't wanna be magical; I wanna be human! I wanna be normal!"
"Okay, well, what you have to do is relinquish your power. It'll go away, and you'll never have to deal with being a witch again."
"What do I have to do? Say a spell?"
"No, Kid. You're young and you're not fully developed as a witch. You're not even close, actually. All you have to do is drink this potion." With those words, Benjamin pulled a green potion from his pocket. Cole took it from him, hesitated, and then drank it.
"Is that all?"
"Yes, Coleridge, that's all."
Cole excused himself from the table and went to go check on his mother. Out of nowhere, a demon shimmers into the kitchen - Raynor - the leader of the Brotherhood of Thorn.
"You can tell the source a new demon has been born today. Belthazor now exists - there's no which covering him up. He'll be primed and ready for you at age twenty-seven."
"How do you know he'll join my Brotherhood?" Raynor asked.
"If he declines, tell him it'll be the only way to save the family he has left."
"The family he has left?" he asked.
Benjamin laughed menacingly. "He'll be close to alone by the time he's that age. Tell him that if he does join, the Source will resurrect the family that has died. But of course, you can just tell him that - you don't have to do it!" He began to laugh more.
Raynor joined in, but then shimmered to tell the Source of All Evil that he?ll have a new demon in twenty years.
Benjamin walked into the other room. "Where are you going?" Dana asked. She was carrying Avril in one arm and holding Cole's hand with the other. Cole was holding his little half brother, Chris.
"I'm going to the store. I'll be back in a bit," Benjamin lied.
"Okay, don't come back too soon," Cole smarted off.
Benjamin rolled his eyes and left.
"Hey, Mom," Cole began. "Why was Dad carrying that bag?"
Dana sighed. "I think you got your wish."
She walked off with Avril down to the kitchen. Cole only stood there with his little brother in his arms. He must love his father - why else would he be crying?
x x x
June 13th, 1907: Age 8
Only a couple of days had passed since Dana had given birth to Cole's two, new youngest brothers, Adam and Kyle, which meant it had been around eight months since Benjamin left. (Adam was only a little bit more than a minute older than Kyle, but that's not all that important.)
It was night - raining. He hated it when it rained in Australia. Benjamin's power as a witch was to control water, and if there was enough in the sky, he could make it rain.
But that was beside the point...
He awoke to a strike of lightening. It scared him - stormy weather always did. Hey, just because he was a genius doesn't mean that he can't get scared. After all, he was only eight years old.
And since his father left, he was the man of the house. During his mom's pregnancy, it was his responsibility to clean, cook, and care...
Meaning: He was in charge... and he was only eight!
His mom needed him to help with the crying babies in the middle of the night. She needed him to help prepare meals. And she just needed him to be there for her - it was still a very difficult time.
He climbed out of his bed and went to check on Avril and Chris, who still shared a room (despite the fact that they were both five years old now.) When he was done making sure they were still asleep, he checked on his two new brothers - Adam and Kyle.
Adam was sleeping, but Kyle was awake. Cole could hear him crying. He walked to his brother's crib and picked him up. "Shh... it's okay," Cole comforted. The baby kept crying. "Kyle, you don't have to cry. Look, I know you don't know who your father is, but trust me; you're better off without him. He's mean and violent. It's okay. I'll take care of you. I'll be there for you - always."
Kyle's cries began to muffle and fade. Cole sung him a song to help comfort Kyle. It was one Dana would sing to Cole when he felt upset:
"Early one morning, as the sun was rising, I heard a maiden sing in the valleys below. 'Oh, don't deceive me. Oh, do not leave me. How could you use a poor maiden so?'"
Cole stopped when he noticed that his baby brother was sleeping. He placed him back in his crib and went to check on his step-mom.
But when he walked near her room, the door was open and the oil lamp was on. He poked his head in and saw his father with the same knife he had used to kill Elizabeth. He saw Benjamin murder Dana - Cole's Dana. The crystal blade pierced Dana's body thirty times, as it did Elizabeth's.
Cole wanted to do something, but he was paralyzed - he couldn't move at all. He was so fearful that he could only watch.
There he saw his mother dead on the floor. His father pulled him by the scruff of his shirt and began to discourage him. "See that?" he pointed. "She's dead because of you. You are the cause of two -and soon you'll be the cause of countless others. Any survivors should consider themselves lucky. Coleridge, you've started a war - a war between me and you - and trust me, you'll be lucky if you aren't too depressed to the point of suicide when our last battle comes around." Then, he started speaking in a language unfamiliar to even a child prodigy such as Cole. It was a forgotten language. "L'Adam - morire sul terzo giorno del suo anno sedicesimo. Poco dopo, Chris morir - sul trenta - primo giorno del suo venti - terzo anno. E lei loro guarder - muore come lei ha Dana."
Huh? Yeah... just a little bit.
Then, Benjamin did something extraordinary. Cole had never seen anything like it before - he hadn't been around magic. Benjamin was surrounded by bright blue and white lights and then disappeared in thin air. Meaning? - he orbed.
Cole broke down and cried.
x x x
June 13th, 1908: Age 9
It had been exactly one year since Dana was murdered. So not only did Cole not like Christmas, obviously: he hated his birthday as well.
And the only thing it did was bring back painful memories - consuming ones, at that. All they did was haunt him day and night.
He had spent a year of his life on the streets now, along with his four siblings whom it was his job to take care of. It was hard, of course. If Cole wasn't a genius, I'd doubt he could've survived. He was angry tonight. He was furious with Benjamin Coleridge Turner. Oh, why did he have to be named after his father? His lying father...
A father who shouldn't have been a father at all... Benjamin had the perfect cover. He was a 'good guy', but not really. He was only good as a human/witch so that the Elders would respect him.
And they respected him so much that Benjamin didn't even have to face the pain of death - and he didn't have to go through being a whitelighter. They found him so 'good' that they made him an Elder on the spot (on the spot being the same night he murdered Dana. What scum he is.)
Just thinking about him made Cole's stomach cringe. He was so furious he began to yell at the skies:
"Why? Why did you choose to abandon your family? Why do you insist on making everything a living hell? You have responsibilities as a father! You should be raising us!"
Big mistake...
Benjamin orbed down with that same knife (must be his favorite...) and slit Cole's throat. It wasn't deep enough to do any real damage, but definitely deep enough to feel the pain and leave a scar.
But the place it was in would make the scar less noticeable. It was in the crease of his neck.
"Maybe that'll teach you a lesson," Ben said before spitting on his son and orbing back to his seat in heaven.
Cole slowly rose from the ground - ripping off one of his shirt sleeves to apply to the wound.
"He's going to betray you!" he screamed to the Elders. Abraham orbed down next to the boy.
"How dare you disrespect a great higher power," Abraham fussed. "Have you no manners, boy? Your parents must be horrible ones at that."
"My mom's dead and my father abandoned my brothers and sister and I. Listen here, Benjamin Turner isn't on your side. He's just using you! You have to listen to me when I say-"
Abraham orbed before Cole could finish.
"Nobody's listening."
x x x
June 13th, 1917: Age 16
Ah, Cole's sweet sixteen - cold and raining, of course. It had seemed like it had been the only weather accountable on that day. Why it was cold, he didn't know - it just happened... in the middle of summer. It was so very peculiar...
Anyways, so there he was with Kyle, Adam, and Avril. Yeah, here's where the problem starts...
"Cole! Help!" Chris cried out in terror. The current of the river was quick and strong. Cole and the others ran along the banks trying to keep up with the pace. "Cole!" He cried out for his brother to come save him. Christopher Lee Turner looked ahead in terror as he saw an upcoming waterfall. Uh oh...
Cole kept running. Off to his left, he noticed about a six-foot long log, cut in half horizontally. It had a knot with a cut - off nub near the back. Cole got an idea - it was genius.
He leapt out to the river and landed on the log running down the current.
"I'm coming!" Cole desperately called back to his little brother. It was his duty to save him - he promised himself when his dad left that he would help his mom raise them. And after she had gone, it was just him.
But he was too late. He watched his brother being swept into the air as he fell down the water fall.
"No!" Cole screamed. "No! Chris!" He began to ache inside. 'I've failed,' he thought. 'All I want to do is hold him.'
Then there was a strange feeling that originated in his stomach that made him want to throw up. And then there he was - falling with his brother in his arms. He... shimmered.
He opened his eyes and realized he just showed up with his brother.
"Smooth, CJ, now we can both die!" Chris threw at him. He was awfully sarcastic for a thirteen-year old.
Cole rolled his eyes. He looked down and saw the sharp rocks only seconds away from him and his brother. And once again, all he wanted came true. He wanted himself and his brother to be on land next to their other two brothers and one sister.
And he wanted to throw up again - and this time, he had a passenger.
They stood soaked next to the others.
"Wh... whoa! What just happened," Avril stated instead of just asking a question.
"I... kind of... disappeared, and then... reappeared..." Cole tried to explain; but the truth was: He didn't know either.
"Yeah, that part, I saw," she recoiled.
"Look, I don't know what happened!" Cole yelled, flailing his hands in frustration. BAM! An energy ball had exited his hand and hit a huge boulder acting as a support barrier of some sort.
"What was that?" Adam asked.
"I don't know!" Cole replied, confused.
"If this is what happens to guys after puberty, count me out!" Chris stated.
Cole rolled his eyes. His siblings were now yelling at each other trying to figure out what happened.
Then Cole remembered something that happened to him a long time ago. It was something he wanted to forget. His father, just before he left, explained to Cole about being a witch.
'But I relinquished my power,' he thought. He shook it off and just decided to cope with whatever the hell was happening to him.
x x x
June 13th, 1928: Age 27
Pain. Ouch - punched in the stomach. Cole was bleeding from the mouth, and his ribs were bruised.
"Changed your mind yet?" a very familiar face asked.
"I'm not joining."
"Guess you haven't..." trailed Raynor.
"I'm not evil."
"Hah, you've been evil since the day you were born!" Raynor told.
"No, I've never been evil - I wasn't evil when I was born, and I'm not evil now," Cole replied, shortly out of breath.
"Okay, I'll cut you some slack; you were seven when your demonic half was born."
The twenty-seven-year old looked up and squinted in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that when you relinquished your witch powers, you gave your life to evil," Raynor told, now a little annoyed.
Cole thought back to when he was seven, and now, he realized everything that had happened so far were just tests - tests that would lead him to where he was now at this moment... a demon...
"Damn," Cole whispered.
"Yes, you are damned. Now, join."
"Never, and you can't make me."
"Wanna bet?" Raynor asked. "Coleridge, if you don't join us then I have no choice but to kill the two siblings you have: Avril and Kyle. You wouldn't want that to happen, now would you?"
"You're bluffing."
"No, my friend, I'm not," Raynor stated. "You see, I don't bluff. And if I do, it's because bluffing would lead someone exactly where I want them."
"Yeah, and if you were bluffing now, you'd be leading me exactly where you wanted me."
"Smart boy. Wow, I'm glad you're apart of my team."
"I'm not."
"Not yet," Raynor said. "Look, I will kill your brother and sister. But how about we make a deal: If you stay until you fulfill your duty with that prophecy, then not only will we leave you and your brother and sister alone, but we'll resurrect your mother and two brothers."
"You can do that?"
"There's a book of evil - we call it the Grimiore - it has a resurrection spell in it, yes." Cole was silent. "Listen, Cole. If you don't join, we will kill them. And then not only will you be an orphan, but an only child. And trust me, you're gonna stop aging... and then you'll just be - until we get mad enough at you to kill you. But that's beside the point..."
"I'm only doing this for my brother and sister."
"I don't care why you're doing it. But from now on you will be known as Belthazor; take him to the other chambers for training."
"What is it exactly that I have to do?"
"You have to come through with all the jobs we assign you until you're assigned to this certain one. Once you finish that, then you can go free."
"With my entire family?" he asked.
"Yes, with your family," Raynor said, rolling his eyes. 'This human side of his might get in the way,' he thought.
"What is this specific job?"
"That's not important."
"With all do respect, sir, I think I deserve to know," Cole told, most sincerely.
Raynor couldn't help it. He did deserve to know, and Raynor was a man of ethics... kinda. "Have you ever heard of the Charmed Ones?" Judging by Cole's silence, he took it as a 'no' and continued: "You have to kill them, break their bond, their power. The prophecy hasn't been fulfilled yet, and we don't know when it will be, but... when it is fulfilled, we're going to send demons to gain knowledge, and then send you in."
"Why me?" he asked. Hey, he was only human... and... demon...
"Because you're half human, Cole - you can feel - you know emotion. You've had every single kind. Anger, rage, love, hatred, pain, greed, desire... Why not you" You're perfect for the job."
Cole sighed. The two demons on either side of him dragged him to the training chambers.
x x x
When Cole Met the Charmed Ones
Next, the Charmed Ones saw memories of Cole's about when he met them. They saw him and his encounters with the Triad, how he defeated them. They saw when he turned to good. They saw him and Prue in the Time Loop, dressed as cowboys. They saw Cole and where he'd been when he ran. They saw when he became the Source, and how he never became the Source intentionally. And they saw how hard he fought for control against the Source.
They saw the times when he was invincible. They saw the avatars, and they saw the times when Cole tried to commit suicide.
Then there was his vanquish. And at last, they saw him accepting his position of a whitelighter. It even included Leo's royal speech of how he stuck it to the Elders.
And now they stood in front of the congregation, and in front of Cole - in front of his siblings and Billy, and they couldn't speak. They felt too... sad. Distraught, even...
Why? - who knew. They didn't think they'd care about Cole that much. But they did. And they didn't know why...
Piper was the first to speak up: "You... never truly were... well... intentionally-"
"Evil," Paige finished, which was a big step for her.
Cole looked down. He wished someone would lighten the mood.
"You're Australian?" asked Phoebe.
Cole laughed under his breath, and Phoebe knew she had said the right thing. "Yeah, I was born and raised in Australia. I moved to the States when I was twenty-seven. I was assigned here my first job, and it just felt good to be away from my past. It was like I was escaping."
"Or running," Piper said.
"What did your... dad... say in that language? And why was there a huge gap until you were twenty-seven? I mean, it didn't even show Adam and Chris-"
"Die? - yeah," Cole finished. Then he told: "It was an older version of Italian. I didn't know what it had meant until after I had joined the brotherhood. They had all sorts of translation books, and I have been hooked on languages ever since. I know all known languages, and some dead ones. Though they were hard to figure out because they were... dead languages. Um... He... He said: 'Adam is to die on the third day of his sixteenth year. Soon after, Chris will die on the thirty-first day of his twenty-third year. And you will watch them die as you have Dana.'
"He was right. They both died when they were those ages - not on the same day of the same year; their deaths were two years apart. I was twenty-four when Adam died and twenty-six when Chris did." Cole sighed. "Those days that he counted - they died on my birthday. Adam and Kyle's birthday was three days before mine. And Chris's was thirty-one."
The Charmed Ones stayed silent.
"I'm sorry," Cole said as tears began to form. "I... I can't be here right now. I have to get out of here."