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.
There are two more chapters of Season 5 left and the mystery of Billie's Dad is one that I have finally mapped out. It doesn't really start properly until Season 6 but we start laying the groundwork now.
And by laying the groundwork I mean you will know who it is by the end of this chapter.
Mother Of Invention
Chapter 13-A Little Fun Wouldn't Hurt
Penultimate of Season 5-The family adjust to a baby, Cole and Phoebe make a decision, Paige gets broody and then gets kidnapped and the Old Crone knows who Billie's Dad is and sends a message...for a rainy day.
Baby boy Halliwell as they had taken to calling him (while Aunt Piper and Leo searched for the perfect P Name) was decidedly one of the cutest babies that Billie had ever seen. He was cute and tiny and had little hands and little fingernails and toenails which was odd because Billie had never considered that babies had little fingernails and little toenails.
It was hard to believe that she was once that small despite the photographic evidence and her mother's testimony.
It was hard to believe that this baby was full of power as well.
That they had yet to see but still.
But he was the cutest baby that Billie had ever seen (granted her knowledge of babies were limited to…well…none) but each day that they hung above his crib she got the impression that he was recognising them.
"It makes you want one" she said as Aunt Piper one day showed her the correct way to hold the baby (because there was a correct way apparently) and her Mom who had been painting her toenails had nearly dropped the pot in shock.
"Never say that again" she said pointing the wand at Billie. "Seriously Billie you can follow in all of my footsteps but this one. You are going to college and having a life and a wedding ring on your finger and I want at least one grey hair before I become a grandmother?"
"Didn't you have one just yesterday?" Cole said in a tone that was an innocence as sugared milk. Her Mom shot him a look and then the second Leo's back was turned she flipped him the finger as easily as breathing. Leo was being very careful around the baby Billie noticed. She didn't understand why if she was being honest with herself. Powerful or not she was guessing hand gestures might be pushing it a bit.
But with a new baby came a new wave of threats even if the new baby didn't have a name, even if he didn't have powers and even though the demons didn't seem to be attacking just right now. Cole had taken to rigging up a huge spreadsheet with red wire and marker pens and everything that led to the person who would benefit most. With no Source in the Underworld it was every man (or demon, warlock, monster etc) for themselves and so that was how her Mom ended up going undercover as a Bounty Hunter.
Caps locks people.
Or something like that.
Billie didn't actually get the full story because she was too busy trying to defend the baby from the white haired freaks that had come to drain his powers.
Well…she had managed to get one of them with a simple vanquishing potion before the other had blasted her through the wall and knocked her unconscious.
But she supposed it was the trying that counted.
When she drifted, she dreamed.
Paige had lost her powers many times before but this time was different, she lay on that table and she drifted and she dreamed.
It was like she was going back in time.
There were flashes of Billie when she was a child, then as a baby, then when she kicked her when she had been pregnant, God she loved her baby girl so much.
And then before that.
And when she drifted, she dreamed.
The beat was a thumping, thumbing and Paige was dancing on a table. She was aware that she was drunk, she was just the edge of sober or maybe she was too drunk and she was just thinking that she was sober. Either way she didn't know. She was not supposed to be drunk. But she was.
And someone was looking at her.
He was her age she thought. Or maybe he wasn't but he was dark and he was dangerous and he came across the room as she hopped down from the table taking his hand as he twirled her towards the dancefloor. It was like it was a dream, like suddenly it was just the two of them. Her and the dark eyed, dark haired boy that wasn't a teenager but wasn't a man either. That delicate age in between. Eighteen maybe.
(Maybe over one hundred thousand years old but then again those things weren't counted when one considered statutory crimes. Right now he was eighteen and she consented.)
It was dark and dangerous and glittering and damaging. The boy whose name she did not know took her home to a room spectacular apartment claiming both his parents were gone. She fell onto a bed and allowed him to touch her, she touched him running fingers over soft skin and dragging lips down his neck and rubbing fingertips over scars and bumps and bruises.
Paige could remember it now.
She wondered if she always had but had blocked it out somewhere down the line. The boy with the brilliantly dark eyes who had looked at her as if she was a prize to be taken. With a demonic edge he had possessed her heart and soul and she had been half in love with him. pleasure drunk and desperate and alive and in love.
He had made her feel that in under six hours.
There had been no condom because she had never thought to ask and would it have made any difference to him?
She remembered the delicious feeling as she hit her most intense climax ever. The simple touches of this boy had left her dizzy in a way she knew no other teenage boy could compare to.
Even now years later when she remembered it she was near gasping for his touch.
Even now when her magic was being drained from her.
His name began with something she remembered. God what was it?
San…Z…Zan something?
She could still see his eyes.
Zan something. Her baby's father.
Somewhere far away she could hear Billie calling for her and she dragged her eyelids upwards even though that was the hardest part. She didn't know how she did it but she did. Every inch of her was drowning and weak and drifting and dreaming and yet her baby needed her so she opened her eyes.
It wasn't Billie. It was her sisters.
But it was enough.
Zan something.
Her baby's father.
And at long last, Paige remembered.
"I think that we should give the baby the middle name of Matthew, after his super protective Aunt and his cousin both of whom protected him today"
Paige caught her daughter's eye and mother and daughter beamed at each other. Paige wrapped her arm around her daughter who grinned back and all the drama of the day had been apparently forgotten.
"And what about his first name?"
"Wyatt, after his very overprotective Daddy"
The Old Crone resisted the urge to roll her eyes with great difficulty and waved her hand around the cauldron and immediately the image disappeared, the surface turning smooth and black as the night sky as the vision ended.
She did not need to see more. To be truthful she did not want to see more. The Crone had seen all that she needed to see both before this touching little moment and afterwards.
Good witches, whitelighters….so emotional and messy.
She had not been lying when she had told the Charmed One's an edict would be issued preventing any attempts on the infant. She had been telling the truth. Low level demons would not listen of course but the boy was more powerful than anyone had anticipated, if the witch and the whitelighter kept producing then they would create children who would be more powerful over and over again.
In truth the child had not intrigued her as much as the other girl had. The blonde one.
As her mother had drifted and dreamed as she was stripped off her powers and her energy the Crone had taken a look at her memories. In truth it was part curiosity, part breaking up the tedium. She was not ready to go up against the Charmed ones yet. When she was ready, then she would make her move.
But she had seen enough to know that the eighteen year old demon that had seduced and impregnated Paige Matthews probably had no idea just who he had fostered a child on. This was a demon who was hundreds of thousands of years old and yet he had come to Earth, to the surface world reincarnated as a teenage boy to do what all demons wanted to do. Find out good magic and destroy it.
Considering the shockwaves that had engulfed the demonic community when they had found out that the Charmed Ones had been reconstituted she doubted very much that the demon in question had known what kind of witch he was impregnating.
But what was odd was that he had never come back…
Most demons did.
Look at Balthazar.
The Crone moved to her table and began to ground up her powders thinking hard. She supposed that it would do no good to get involved directly, she did not want to bring the wrath of HIM down upon her. She did not want to bring the wrath of HIM down on anyone to be honest. Demons might be beneath her and her wisdom but HE had a reputation for a violence that she did not indulge in even when dealing with her worst enemies.
Besides…it had been…fourteen years or so since she had last heard that HE was above ground. Buried so far deep in the Underworld last she had heard that even the Source had not bothered him.
She added some bat wing and watched as it curled up in the small fire of her mortar and pestle and then added the ground boy's eyes and thought to herself that this was a development that should perhaps not be spread around. The girl was the daughter of the most powerful witch and the most powerful demon that had ever walked the face of the Earth and she did not want to spread such tales. Perhaps it would be best to let the Matthews girls figure it out on their own (not that she suspected they would, witches usually didn't think that the man they had slept with was a demon). Maybe she could use it as leverage.
But the more she thought about it the more she thought that it was only…prudent…to let HIM know what she had discovered. Perhaps he knew the name, perhaps he knew the story, perhaps he wanted his daughter, perhaps he did not, perhaps he wanted things to stay exactly the same. She did not know how his mind worked, but she knew that she wanted to cover her own behind (to speak crudely forgive her it had been a taxing day), if he moved into the open now then that was his choice but if HE found out that she had kept this secret from him then it was more than her life's work and her life's worth and her life was not over.
She clapped her hand and one of her crows flew to her side and she took her ink and her parchment and began to write her vision down. The vision that she had seen in Paige Matthew's head. The memory that she had seen in Paige Matthew's head.
She curled the parchment around the crow's leg and stroked one old gnarled knotted finger down the soft wing.
"You know where to go" she told him and with a soft caw he flew off into the unknown.
The next time she saw that Hawker she was going to have to get more crows she thought randomly watching as he disappeared into the inky black sky.
She turned and sat on her old chair and stared into the depths of her fire and she crossed her hands in her lap and smiled to herself.
It was amusing that the three most powerful witches…(four if you counted the one who had died and who was almost certainly there in spirit tonight) had all fawned around a man, had all believed that a baby boy was the most powerful being of them all. It was comical really how much they had fallen back into the stereotypical ideals and roles. It was never the boy who was going to be the most powerful. Never the child of the witch and the whitelighter.
It was going to be the girl. The daughter of the witch and the original demon, the original sin that had plagued their land and given them the freedom to be who they were, damned, bad, dangerous, evil, the man with the charming roguish wicked smile and the eyes that were dark and dangerous and had seen many a good witch to ruin, who had once looked like an eighteen year old boy and had charmed his way into a fifteen year old girls heart (pardon the pun), the demon who even now was still stunningly attractive, dangerous and could send a flicker of warmth in even the coldest of cold hearts.
(Not hers you understand. She did not have a heart to feel cold or warmth anymore)
The Crone grinned in glee to herself unable to stop the smirk of superiority and she kicked another log onto her fire. She would not scry the future tonight she thought uncorking the bottle of blood wine and thinking that she might spoil herself and have one more than her usual one tonight.
She could not help herself.
She was delightful curious to see what Zankou was going to do when he found out he had a daughter with one of the Charmed Ones.
Drama such as this made having the gift of foresight, a sheer joy to have.
After all…a little fun couldn't, wouldn't and shouldn't hurt when you had an eternity to live for.
Bet you didn't see that one coming!
The decision to make Zankou Billie's father was not an easy one but I felt like it was the right one. He is quite frankly one of the best villain's in the Charmed Universe, and quite frankly the most attractive (sorry Cole). I just really...really...liked how this turned out the second my brain latched on the idea.
In terms of consent yes it is dubious, Paige was underage when she got pregnant, Zankou takes on the appearance of an eighteen year old but he is eons older. I know that blurs the lines a bit in terms of consent and legality but Zankou is never going to go on trial. I have the plot as he is a demon who actually did look like he was eighteen back then even though he was over two thousand years old. This is an AU world after all so creative licence i guess? but the endgame for this is still Paige/Henry, Zankou/Paige (if that is even a thing) does have a little moment but nothing too drastic.
The Zankou arc really begins to take place Season 6/7 I am bringing him in a little bit earlier especially as I don't intend to go to Season 8 other than two episodes.
And I love the Crone, seriously she was epic.
Next Chapter-The final of Season 5. In which Billie comes home to find a strange guy in her living room, her mother and her Aunts turned into Gods and somehow along the way she finds herself changed into what? A demi God? A baby God? Something anyway.