Greetings all. I don't know how I managed to write an update amidst the maelstrom of activity that inevitably accompanies one of my mother's visits, but I did. Whew. Wipes sweat from brow. One hopes quality did not suffer as a result. You be the judge. As always thanks for the reviews. Please keep writing; it gives me motivation to find the time. And, as promised, individual replies:

PhoebeColelovers: I know I'm evil with the cliffhangers. It is, I'll admit, a cheap literary gimic to force people to keep reading. But then, I never said I was above cheap gimicry.

Eternal Dragon101: It always bugged me that nobody on the show really gave Cole credit for how hard he resisted turning evil. Like you said, it wasn't really his fault and I always wanted the show to recognize that. Glad you liked it.

Grace1776 Jr.: Glad to be unpredictable. I thought Victor was an appropriate name because the original Victor had to deal with the pain of being powerless in a powerful family, which is a large part of my Victor's problems.

ethereal girl: See my comments above about cliffhangers. As for Phoebe, maybe she can reach Victor about Cole, but she'll have to deal with his issues with her as well. Wait and see.

Gilluin: Yup, anger management definitely not his strong suit.

cate78: You raise an interesting question. Hopefully the subsequent chapters have gone a long way towards answering it. Is there really any way to separate the effects of a child's upbringing from their fundamental "nature"? I don't know, but keep reading.

And to all the people who simply said they liked and wanted more (Cursed Girl, Baku Karangel, p4piper, EveryoneIsEntitledToMyOpinion, Wicked R, THEHUNTRESS06, buffyandspike-4ever, sn0zb0z): Thanks. I hope I haven't disappointed.

And now, our feature presentation:

Ch. 5

"Victor you stay away from your cousin!" mom shouted. She was really mad.

Wyatt had been teasing him like he always did. Wyatt was mean. He said Victor was stupid because he didn't have any powers. Wyatt sometimes orbed things into the back of his head when the adults weren't paying attention, or used magic to cheat when they were playing sports. Once Wyatt cursed his toys to make them attack him in the middle of the night.

But it wasn't the tricks that hurt the worst. It was the words. Grown ups were always telling him that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me," but grown-ups were stupid. He'd take broken bones any day. When Wyatt told him he must have been adopted because no Halliwell could be so powerless, Victor had punched him in the face. Of course it was right then that mom walked in.

Mom grabbed him by the arm really hard.

"Ow," Victor complained.

"Does that hurt?" mom asked. Victor nodded, tears welling up. "Good," she said, "maybe that will teach you not to hurt other people."

"But mom, I didn't…"

"I don't want to hear any excuses," mom said. "What did I tell you?"

"That I can never lose my temper, not for any reason" Victor said ashamedly. But then his shame turned to something else, a sense of injustice. "But it's not fair. Wyatt loses his temper all the time. And he's bigger than me and has powers. He's the one who shouldn't."

"I was just minding my own business and Victor said it wasn't fair I had powers so he punched me," said Wyatt in his little angel voice. God Victor hated him. He somehow always managed to make adults believe him no matter what he did wrong.

"Liar!" Victor shouted.

"Wyatt, honey, why don't you go out and play," mom said. Wyatt stuck his tongue out when mom wasn't looking and walked out of the room.

Mom looked down at him sadly.

"What am I going to do with you?" she asked.

"Mom, you've got to believe me. Wyatt…" said Victor

"No, Wyatt is good now. You can't blame other people for your mistakes. You've got to learn to take responsibility for your actions," mom said.

"But…" Victor said.

"No more buts," mom said coldly. She looked at him distantly, like he wasn't even there. "You're just like your father. I am very disappointed in you."

---

"You disappoint me Victor," said Trent. The demon's voice drew Victor out of his haze. The dapper black clad, white haired figure smirked at the young man. Victor was bound to a post, with his hands tied painfully behind his back. His black tea shirt was ripped and bloody.

"Yeah," Victor replied. "I do that a lot."

"It must have been hard," the demon said, "having to grow up surrounded by people who hate you."

Victor invited him to do something anatomically impossible.

"We had a deal," Trent said angrily. "I arrange for you to come back in time; you get the satisfaction of killing your father."

"Why do you care, Trent?" Victor asked. "You're not exactly a good Samaritan, so why does it matter to you if one more demon dies."

Victor wondered briefly why he himself cared. He'd planned it, visualized it so many times and ways, but in the moment of truth his mother's voice had stopped him. Somehow, despite everything, he still didn't want to disappoint her again.

"My reasons are none of your concern. You will complete the task," said Trent.

"Or what?" Victor asked. "You'll bore me to death by replaying the past." Trent was a trans-temporal demon. He existed in some ways outside of normal time, which was why he could remember having dealt with Victor in the future even though he, Trent, had not traveled through time with him. One of the demon's many powers was to evoke the past or future of others and force them to live through the events of another time, in this case the most painful events of Victor's childhood. They were more than memories and could actually leave physical marks. His torn up chest was from a time Victor had nearly been killed by a hunch backed toad demon. After that he'd begged his mom and aunts to unbind his powers. He thought Piper and Paige would have, but his mom insisted he would be in even more danger that way. She promised she would protect him, but for the first time he didn't believe her. Even the great Phoebe Halliwell could not be there all the time. It was then that he realized, finally and irrevocably, that the only person in the world he could truly rely on was himself.

"No," Trent answered. "It is clear you have a nearly infinite capacity to wallow in you own misery."

"Oh good, then you can skip right to the part where you say some variation of 'join me or die' and then proceed to the execution," said Victor.

"Victor," Trent said, his tone reproving. "I'm wounded you think me so predictable and cliché. Perhaps I should also lay out my evil plan while I'm at it?" He seemed to find this genuinely amusing. "No I think I'll cut right to the chase." He snapped his fingers and Mace shimmered in. He held a dark haired baby in his arms.

"Your family is captive and I will murder one of them every hour until Cole dies. I think I'll start with little Chris here," he said with a cold smile.

Victor looked at his cousin in horror. Chris was the only member of his family he liked, the only one who always treated him like he belonged. Trent's smile widened as he took in Victor's reaction. He snapped his fingers again and Mace shimmered out. He gestured to Victor's binds and they came undone.

"Time's a-ticking," said Trent.

-- Change of Scene –

"What do we do?" Phoebe asked. She wasn't really talking to him, but it was Cole that answered.

"We figure out who is behind this, take them down, and save your family," Cole said confidently.

"How?" Phoebe turned from the nursery to regard him. "I don't have a vanquish, or my sisters, or my active powers."

"It'll be alright," said Cole.

"How will it be alright Cole?" she said, voice rising. "How is anything going to be alright?"

"Because," Cole said and put a hand on her shoulder. "You're a Halliwell and a Charmed One. You've faced down the worst evil has to offer and you're still standing. You can do this Phoebe."

She looked down almost shyly and then back into his eyes. "Promise?" she asked.

"Hope to die," he answered.

Phoebe placed a hand on his cheek, felt the stubble, the strong jaw line. Before she could think about it she pressed against him, her mouth on his. She felt his hands run down her back. He kissed her back urgently, like a starving man. He pushed her against the wall. But then he suddenly pulled away.

"We can't do this, not now," Cole said. His voice was rough.

Phoebe wanted to object, wanted to continue with what they'd been doing. She viscerally, passionately, wanted Cole. But he was right. She took a moment to compose herself.

"We need to find them," Phoebe said. "I'll try scrying and the call a lost witch spell, but I somehow doubt that's going to work. I'm sure Mace has them somewhere shielded. Why don't you go try to shake something up from one of your…contacts, and I'll check the book."

"No," Cole said. "I'm not leaving your side until this is over."

Phoebe started to open her mouth to argue, but Cole interrupted. "Not negotiable," he said.

Phoebe couldn't say why, but she felt better somehow. It was crazy; this was Cole. She hadn't forgiven him, and god – what had she been doing kissing him. Had she lost her mind? But somehow she felt, somehow she knew, that she could trust him in this.

They returned to the attic. As predicted all the usual methods for finding lost people failed and after a couple hours they were no closer to finding anyone when they started. She checked the book but eventually threw up her hands in frustration.

"This is pointless," she said. "We know Mace isn't in here."

"Maybe you shouldn't be looking for Mace," Cole suggested. "Maybe you should look for Victor. I get the sense he's somehow the key to all this."

"I already tried looking for him along with the rest of the family," Phoebe said absently, her concentration still on flipping through the book. "Mace must have had help to take Paige, Piper and Leo all at the same time." She looked up at him. "If we can somehow figure out who helped maybe we can…" she stopped at the expression on Cole's face. She had seen Cole angry, depressed, crazy, and indifferent – but this was the first time she had seen him look shocked. His face paled and his eyes were wide as saucers.

"Victor is our son," he said in a tone of revelation.

Phoebe's jaw dropped. "How did you…?" she started.

"He looks like both of us, he knows me well enough to hate me, he made a cryptic reference that I'd know him in the future, he has the same name as your grandfather, you said you love him, and you just called him family," Cole summarized the evidence like the attorney he was.

Phoebe mentally replayed her last few sentences and then mentally kicked herself. No one had ever accused Cole of being stupid. The sister's had never figured out Chris even though they knew he was from the future. It had taken a vision before she'd put the pieces together. Yet Cole figured Victor out within hours. She thought about denying it; she could claim he was a distant cousin or something. But she knew Cole well enough to realize he wouldn't be fooled.

"Wait," Cole said, "That means you and I…"

Phoebe laughed nervously and showed all her teeth. "Let's not go there right now."

He nodded, and looked away. "Why does my son hate me?" he asked slowly.

Phoebe shrugged. "I don't know. Something about the future. It sounds like I, I didn't trust him." She looked away in shame. "But I don't know what you did. If it makes you feel any better he hates me too."

"No, that actually makes me feel even worse," Cole said. He said it not like a criticism, or an indictment, but as a simple truth. His fists clinched and he stared at them as though they held answers. "I know what it's like to grow up as an outsider, to never really belong. It's not something I'd wish on anybody, least of all my son."

Cole reached in his coat pocket and pulled out the athame Victor left in the wall next to his head. He'd grabbed it when they returned to the scene.

"Phoebe, this was Victor's. Maybe you can get a premonition," he said and held it out to her.

"Actually my powers haven't been…" she stopped before she could complete the thought as she touched the athame and the familiar but long absent feeling of premonition swept over her.

Victor attacked Cole relentlessly with a series of kicks and strikes. Cole blocked or dodged most of the blows, but was obviously overmatched. He backed up, eyes darting around as though looking for an escape route. Victor's face was sad, not at all the mask of righteous fury she'd seen in the cave. Cole's mouth was closed, his expression grim. Having run out of room to retreat, Cole started throwing punches. The attacks were strong and fast, but Cole fought like a man who had never had to rely on unarmed combat. Victor easily blocked each blow and then used the momentum from Cole's punch to twist him around into a painful looking arm lock. Cole was forced to his knees and bent double at the waste. Victor's eyes tensed. He mouthed 'forgive me' and then plunged an athame into Cole's heart through the back. Cole disintegrated and, a few seconds later, Victor faded out.

Phoebe gasped and found herself on the floor. Cole knelt over her, concern etched into his features.

"Phoebe, what's wrong? I've never seen you go out that long for a vision before," he said.

"We need to get out of here," Phoebe said.

Cole nodded and started to shimmer them out. That was one of the things she loved about him; he trusted her and knew when to save the questions. Unfortunately the shimmer abruptly stopped and returned them to the attic.

"What," Phoebe started when she heard a familiar voice from the door way.

"Hi," said Victor, "catch you at a bad time?"