A Shorter chapter this time but I hope you like it anyway.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.

And Cole is not going evil in this fic just to keep that in mind, he was Phoebe's soulmate and he always will be. Due to him not going evil a lot of the Season 4 after the next chapter will be skipped. Again I do not think I will include the last season so just keep in mind Henry might pop up in the Season 6/7 arc (never liked Richard anyway).

Please Read and Review.

And Trigger Warnings for this chapter for miscarriage. Please be aware.

Some chapters will involve a time jump including skipping episodes. Just keep that in mind.

In case it's not clear I DESPISE the Elders. There is not one redeeming quality about any of them. I personally was routing for Piper to drag Prue and Phoebe on strike with her in Season 3 when they took Leo away, I was kinda routing for it in Season 7. Let the Charmed Ones go on strike and see how long they last I say.

Mother Of Invention

Chapter 10-A Father's Image

Paige and Billie are both forced to confront the issues surrounding their respective father's when Paige finally gets a chance to meet hers.

There was something odd about this Sam guy.

That was Billie's first impression of the drunk that her Mom had brought home. As a half whitelighter she was exploring her options—as she called it—to figure out if her whitelighter side was something that she wanted to explore. Billie didn't know weather she would be given the same option. She was a witch who was getting remarkably comfortable with her power. She was also half a whitelighter too but she had no orbing power, no ability to orb like her mother from place to place.

God knows if she did she would never be late for school again.

Personal gain aside and all that.

But back to the point. There was something off about this Sam guy. And that was before you got to smell him. It was clear in the way that Leo looked at him, at the way Sam looked at Phoebe and Piper, at the way that Cole spat out his coffee when he heard the name looking wildly between the three of them as if he was seeing something that Paige and Billie did not. As if he was looking for conformation of something and she didn't know what. She didn't know what was so important about this man who looked at her Mom and then muttered something about seeing a ghost.

She didn't know until the Darklighter turned up.

The first arrow hit her Mom square in the stomach. The second one got Leo in the arm. He had moved in front of his wife and his half whitelighter baby as if it was second nature and her Mom had been stood in front of her and the rage and the panic and the pain that had suddenly hit Billie was so strong that she found it hard to breathe. It was like the red mist had descended and suddenly she had her hands out and the Darklighter went flying. He crashed into the wall with all the force that she had and it was as such that she blew up the banister with it. She forced the Darklighter to rebound and then she blasted him with some kind of power that she had never seen before. The entire house seemed to quake with the energy and she had never employed before. She wanted nothing more to do than to destroy this piece of evil that had come into her life, into her mother's life and was now threatening to take away it all.

She had not expected some kind of active power along the way.

Not that the power that she had never had before wasn't active it was just…quaking someone until they were vanquished right in front of you? Well…that was something else.

That was something else.

She did not know what to make of that.

The quaking stopped though and the Darklighter was vanquished and she turned around to face everyone again. Everyone but Cole looked quietly stunned. Cole was looking at her like…well…she didn't know but she knew that it was not good. She saw that.

"Well" Aunt Piper said quietly. "Someone's got an active power finally."

"Yeah well it's not gonna save Mom" Billie said running back to her Mom's side and taking the hand in hers. Her Mom had gone almost grey, white and sweaty and shaking and Leo didn't look much better. And for the first time since becoming a witch Billie Matthews felt a kind of helplessness attack her the likes of which she had never known before. She did not know how to do this without her Mom. How to put one foot in front of the other without her. She was only fourteen she didn't know how to do it alone. Her fifteenth birthday was just around the corner and was this going to be the first in a long line of birthdays that she wasn't going to see her Mom for? Wasn't going to have the comfort of her mother, her advice, the fact that she was there to argue with. The simple everyday things that you never thought you would miss until you were sat there watching them fade away from you.

It was beyond…beyond anything that Billie had ever experienced and she didn't know how she was going to make it through the next hour never mind the next of the day. She was tired and she was aching and she was crying and for a second she missed the whole let's get Sam thing because Sam the bastard, the charge that her mother had risked her life to get and to save was apparently the key to this thing and though her Mom was potentially trying to find words to say her last goodbyes (though that thought to Billie was sick, obscene even) she turned to look at both her Aunts who clearly knew more about this Sam guy than she was ever going to.

"Who is he?"

Maybe it was the active power that she had just recently discovered. Maybe it was the fact that her tone was firm even though her throat was clogged with tears. Maybe it was…well…who knew what it was that got the two of them to start talking. All she knew was that while she was sat cross legged on the floor desperately trying to make sure that her mother kept breathing, Aunt Piper did the same and so they were facing each other when they were speaking and her Mom was feebly stirring in that way she had perfected (Darlighter arrow or not) when Billie had been a child and had tried to run into the room to discover what Santa had brought her.

Actually come to think of it she had never asked if he was real? Bloody hell if he was then that was going to be a mind trip.

And come to think of it if he was real then she was damn well going to ask him why she had never gotten a unicorn when she was a child.

Because she knew for a fact those were real now.

"Billie" Aunt Piper snapped at her and she jolted her attention back to her Aunt rather than her Mom who was watching. Dear God even her eyelids were sweating with the toxins of the Darklighter poison.

"Pay attention"

"Yes…sorry…what were you saying"

"We were…sweetie we were trying to tell you that we know Sam" her Aunt Phoebe said quietly. "We know him very well…he…he helped us and your Aunt Prue vanquish a demon a long time ago. It was the same demon that killed your grandmother Patty and…and in doing so he lost his life"

Billie's brain which by her own admission had already been pushed to the limit too many times today was already struggling to keep up but she tried nonetheless.

"Okay" she said and she knew her Mom was listening to every word. "Okay so…so he was reborn a whitelighter? Like Leo?"

"Well…no…he already was a whitelighter sweetie, we think he was reborn a mortal so he could become a whitelighter again"

Billie didn't understand and perhaps that showed on her face because her Aunt Piper waved a hand, the one that wasn't attached to her husband's pulse point anyway.

"Sweetie don't try and understand THEM, believe me you won't and it's not worth the migraine suffice to say that with the entire Halliwell line, THEY are on very thin ice and THEY know it. The Elders dance a very fine dance around us and sooner or later it is going to come to a Reckoning, there was Andy, then there was Prue, then there was Leo and I and then there was this baby and Paige and even now…even now I don't know how many lines needed to be crossed. I know that had your Grams…my Mom gotten her way, had she not been so afraid of THEM then there would have been a reckoning…Billie…you have to understand our family and THEM and…"

"And what?" she asked her expression not one to mess with and Aunt Piper shook her head.

"And Sam…Sam was your grandmother's whitelighter. He was the man that got your grandmother pregnant. He's Paige's father. He happens to be your grandfather. He was the man that saved Prue, that allowed her closure…you see…she saw the body. And Billie…I don't know how much he knows but…well…I don't know…"

Aunt Piper trailed off and she got it suddenly. Sam had been Patricia Halliwell's whitelighter. He had been the man that had saved her grandmother, her Aunt's…he had been her grandfather…her mother's father and beyond that when she closed her eyes and thought about it she thought that she could see Piper and Leo and them keeping their relationship hidden from the Elders, she thought that she could see her mother keeping her a secret from the Elders, she thought that she could see her grandmother keeping her mother from the Elders.

When one looked at it the Elders had a lot to pay for and she swallowed bitterly. But she thought that she could understand a little of the agony that her grandmother had gone through. The choice of her three legitimate daughters with the man that she loved but had not been in love with (and yes, even Billie at fourteen could learn the difference) and the choice of a life with the man that she loved who loved her back heart and soul against the daughters that had been the epitome of love…

And suddenly her hatred of the Elders hit her with a full force and she was furious for her Mom. For her Grandma, for her Grandpa, for the choice that they had been forced to make. She didn't know what to make of that and so she sat there and held her Mom's hand and thought about the tragedy love and then suddenly as she was sure that her Mom, her Momma, was about to die Sam appeared his face grey and white all at once and for a second he looked at Paige Matthews (who would have been his daughter had things gone his way) and then he looked at Billie Matthews (who would have been his granddaughter had things gone his way) and then he healed Paige and the Leo and then he collapsed on the floor his head in his hands.

Billie had crawled over to him hands scrambling in the dirt and she closed her eyes and leaned into the broad shoulder and allowed him to cling to her and she tried too much not to think about it.

She didn't know what to make of this man being her grandfather.

Hell…she didn't even know who her own father was.

But her mother was healed and that was all that mattered.

Paige Matthews was left breathing and her hand curled around Billie's head and later that night if Billie crawled into her bed and slept clinging to her mother with all that she had. Paige had clung back and neither one of them had commented on the nameless, faceless man.

But she had thought about it nonetheless.

Billie had thought about it unable to stop thinking about it and the more she thought about it, the more she had wondered about it. She now had an active power. She now had an active way of defending herself and she knew that while Sam had been out there, maybe her own father had been out there.

Maybe it was as simple as an innocent that had wanted to be saved? Maybe….maybe…she didn't know…she didn't know even how to ask.

But she thought that she had several questions that needed to be raised and so while her mother slept she stared up at the lights and thought that it was time.

If her father was demonic she wanted to know.

If her father was a whitelighter she wanted to know.

If her father was a human she wanted to know.

If her father was a witch then she wanted to know.

Either way…whoever was her father…Billie Matthews wanted to know.

And every magical being in the Book, help her, she was going to find out. One way or the other.

And that was a promise that she made to herself.

Even though she didn't fall asleep.

And there you go, hope you enjoy this chapter and I Will do my best to bring you the next one sooner rather than later.

Next Chapter-Billie and Paige alongside the Charmed Ones get a crash course into Gypsy magic. Phoebe's powers are on the blink since her miscarriage and Piper needs a Doctor.