Chapter 2: August 2, 2015 – Cole

Chapter Summary: Cole has to face his past.

Challenge: for the livejournal 2015 August Fic-a-Day Challenge

Timeline: Storywise – spring of Cole's first school year as deputy; end of season 5 for Charmed.

Warning: more AU-ness for BtVS/AtS.

Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy. HP characters belong to JK Rowling. Charmed characters belong to Constance M. Burge and the WB. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.

Ministry of Magic

Cole joined Buffy for her weekly visit with Willow at Willow's request. When they got comfortable, Willow dropped two bombshells on them. "First things first…Buffy, I was just informed by the Minister of Magic that the Prime Minister of England has a decree for you from the Queen. The gist of it is you're in charge of the Watchers' Council now…or rather somebody you like and trust is."

"She has the authority to do that?" Buffy asked in surprise.

"To both the Council and the Ministry of Magic," Willow confirmed. "They both have charters that go back hundreds of years that pledge their loyalty to the Crown. Now that means more to the Ministry than it does to the Council…if the Council really thought about it. The Ministry has no choice but to stay in England since it's the English Ministry of Magic. But the Council is an international organization. If they didn't want to listen to the Queen, they could just disband in England and start over in another country," she said with a slight roll of her eyes.

Buffy started giggling until she had tears forming in her eyes. She now ran the organization that tried to kill her and Faith because the people in charge didn't want to move. "Oh my gosh, that's too funny!" she gasped out eventually. After taking a few deep breaths, she asked, "Can you spare Giles?"

Willow nodded. "As much as I need him here, we need him running the Council more. He's trying to lure Wes and Fred away from Wolfram & Hart to head a couple departments for him."

"That'll be good for them to get out of that place," Buffy said. "I'm surprised they haven't been fully corrupted yet."

"The Senior Partners really just want Angel," Cole interjected. "Getting the others is a nice bonus, but hardly worth the effort of fighting to keep them. Since Angel is essentially immortal, they can take their time to corrupt him over decades. If he doesn't leave, I can picture him being as bad as Angelus – if not worse – in about 50 years or so. They'd wait until all the humans he brought with him left or died. Until then, they'd simply transfer the worst of their clients to other branches around the world."

Buffy shot him a look of alarm. "What should we do?"

He shrugged. "Unless you can get him to tell the truth about why he joined them, there isn't much you can do. I'm assuming they have something over him, but I have no clue what it could be. If I had to hazard a guess, it would have to do with that evil goddess Jasmine who tried to take over the world just before he signed on with Wolfram & Hart."

Buffy and Willow thought back to that time…which apocalypse was that during? Faith had shown up after helping Willow put Angelus back in his cage. That would make it the "Idiots who thought they were playing a D&D-type game, but actually summoning real demons through the Hellmouth" world-endage. That one was heavy on the fighting, but light on the evil intent behind it. Faith proved herself to the gang more than once that year, and Xander was the one who eventually found out who was behind the monsters and how they were doing it when he was invited to one of their game nights.

Willow shook herself out of her thoughts and said, "Speaking of apocalypse stuff, there's some things happening back in your area, Cole. That's why I need to talk to you."

"The sisters?" he guessed.

"We aren't entirely sure what's going on with them," Willow admitted. "The Devon Coven's seer knows that it's something the Power of Three has to take care of, but until they do, we have to protect innocents that might be caught in the crossfire. Having you go there is a bad idea, I know, because it would just distract the sisters, but do you have any contacts you could talk to about what's happening over there?"

"Except for the evil ones – who would probably try to kill me as soon as they saw me – the only two I can think of are Darryl and Leo…and neither one like me very much because of my history with the sisters. Although Leo might be willing to listen to me if you're with me, Buffy. Your reputation is impressive enough that you're known even in our part of the magical community," Cole explained.

Buffy fought the urge to blush as she said, "Okay, where should we go to talk to him?"

San Francisco

Staring over the edge of the bridge-thingy, Buffy shuddered at the height. Ever since Glory, she found she was afraid of major heights like this.

"Don't worry, Buffy. I won't let you fall and nobody can see us up here," Cole assured her. "I think that's why Leo likes coming here to think and meditate. Leo!" he called.

A few seconds later, Leo orbed in with a concerned look on his face. "Cole…what are you doing here…and now?" he asked suspiciously.

"Hi, I'm Buffy Summers. I don't know if you remember me from few months ago at Hogwarts?" she interrupted.

Leo nodded. "The Slayer. It's good to meet you, but I don't have a lot of time to talk right now."

"Something world-endy going on that only the sisters can deal with?" Buffy guessed.

"I don't know," Leo answered. "And what makes me nervous is that even the Elders don't know…but they are very worried about whatever it is."

Cole entered the conversation, "Some witches that work with Buffy suggested that I come here to find out what's happening and to offer our help in any way we can. Their seer knows that the upcoming fight requires the Power of Three to stop it, but any time there's a fight, there's usually something others can do to help to protect innocents."

"And you're offering to help the side of good, Belthazor?" Leo asked somewhat skeptically. He knew that Cole was allied with the Slayer now, but he also had gone through this in the past when Cole tried to give up being a demon for Phoebe.

"I'll admit that I made some serious mistakes with Phoebe and the sisters, but over the past several months, I've learned that they made some as well," Cole said before Buffy could jump to his defense. "My obsession to destroy them as Belthazor shifted into a romantic obsession with Phoebe later on, and I fooled myself into believing it was real love. If it had been real, I wouldn't have had to stop being who I was to be with Phoebe, though."

"So you're saying that she should have accepted you being evil?" Leo demanded.

"No, I'm saying she should have accepted my demonic side as long as I was using those powers for good," Cole retorted.

Leo could see his point…sort of, but still replied, "But you enjoyed killing too much."

Snorting, Cole answered, "And the sisters don't enjoy vanquishing demons? Even a little bit?"

"Hell, I get a rush out of killing vamps. Does that mean I'm evil, too?" Buffy asked. "Wait, according to you and the sisters, I must be since my powers come from a demon way back when the First Slayer was created by mystical shamans."

"Really?" Leo asked in considerable surprise. He had never thought about how the First Slayer had come into being before, and learning her powers were demonic in nature threw his world off-kilter. "I get your point, Cole – and Buffy – but I wouldn't expect the sisters to believe you anytime soon…or ever."

"It really doesn't matter," Cole said. "I have no plans to return to this part of the world again. It's a bad place for me. I'm just here to introduce you to a valuable group of allies. Buffy and her people can help you."

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have a backup plan or two," Leo allowed. "But right now, I have to get back to Piper before the Elders stop all orbing. We've already lost one Whitelighter to something, and until we find out what it is…" he trailed off.

"Alright. While you work with the sisters, we'll try to come up with some ideas to keep everyone safe," Cole promised his ex-brother-in-law. "Be careful, I don't know what they'd do without you."

Leo smiled grimly, then orbed to the marriage counselor's office to meet Piper. He hoped that she could forgive him for keeping Cole's assistance in whatever this was from her and her sisters.

A/N: Okay, so not so heavy on the school stuff, but I really wanted that conversation between Leo and Cole about using demonic powers for good. Plus I had to deal with the fact that last year, I had Travers and the rest of the Council alive, but yesterday implied that Buffy and her friends were in charge. Oops? And as you can tell, season 5 of Angel was different from canon (seeing as Fred is still alive more than 5 years later). The storyline of the First Evil never happened in this reality; I'm not sure how Buffy beat Glory either, but most of seasons 6 & 7 were different than canon.