Hi, so here is a return to this wonderful fandom of Charmed and this time I am attempting to do a Paige story, I love Rose, I love Paige, I just always loved Prue a little bit more. But having rewatched Seasons 4-8 I have to admit the Paige/Billie relationship was one of the few good things that came out of that Season. So this is based on that.

I confess I don't know much about the American Social System and a lot of this is AU. I have had to make Paige younger when she had Billie and older when she met the Charmed ones, this is not cannon compliment in terms of dialogue or in terms of episodes so some will be missed and some will be stretched into chapters.

This will end Paige/Henry, and will end Leo/Piper, I don't intend to go too much into Season 8 so Henry might make an appearance in the Season 7 arc. Christy ain't gonna be happening and I am not sure if I want to keep Cole good but he might be simply because while I can tolerate Coop that ending was a complete shambles for Phoebe, Cole was the love of her life and Cole was the one she was supposed to end up with.

So that over with...

I do not take PMs anymore either, if you have a question please leave a review and I will get back to you in the next chapter, chapter notes.

And on a side note, I like so many other Fanfiction Authors no longer receive notifications via email about reviews/PMs etc. So if you do send any it might be a while, if ever before I get back to you. Please keep that in mind for it is not intentional-If anyone has a fix please let me know.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.

Please Read and Review.

Mother Of Invention

AU: In which Paige has her daughter Billie soon after her parents death and is raising her alone when the Halliwell sister's descend into their lives. Seasons 4-8 (mostly), Paige/Henry endgame, Leo/Piper. Not episode specific, not dialogue specific.

Chapter 1-Small Blessings

Paige Matthews had somehow survived the death of her entire family in a car wreck. Somehow she could survive having her baby. Somehow she survived. At least until one morning when Billie passed her the paper.

The ironic thing was that looking back Paige Matthews could not remember who had gotten her pregnant at the age of fifteen.

That was the first alarming thing to take from this.

She had survived the death of her entire family in a car wreck and somehow she had and her baby had survived the trip to the hospital, the concerned social workers, everyone flocking around her. She had been half in and out of it her guilt threatening to drown her alive when the social worker Hollie had taken the time to explain to her that she was eight weeks pregnant and that her baby was alright but they needed to ask her some questions just to make sure that nothing had happened to her.

She had tried to answer them as best she could but her brain had not been working and it had felt like she was wading through treacle. She didn't know how she had gotten pregnant. She was sure that she had not been raped or anything like that but the truth was for the last six months she had been partying pretty hard, drinking, smoking, doing the odd pill and yes…having underage sex with boys.

So there was very little that she could do to help.

They had suggested tests to see if the babies father was in the system but she had flat out refused. Ward of the state or not Paige was clear. This was her body and her baby. If she wanted an abortion she would get one, if she wanted to put the baby up for adoption she would do that, if she wanted to keep her magical baby that had cropped up from nowhere and had somehow survived then…

Then that was a whole other story.

She knew what the easy decision was to do. She knew what the right decision was to do.

She knew what she wanted to do.

In the end Paige suspected she was a lot more selfish than she was selfless and she chose what she wanted to do.

She always had after all, that had been part of the reason why her parents were now confined to gravestones and none of her adoptive family would take her in.

Hollie found her a good placement she had to admit that, she was on the phone whenever Paige needed her, she helped with Doctor's appointments and encouraged her to get High School Diploma, she encouraged her to graduate and look at community college and she even found her one that had childcare options. In short she was the dream social worker, dedicated to the people in her care and caring until the last.

Paige was sixteen when she gave birth.

A baby girl the Doctor told her smiling. A healthy baby girl. And If the power suddenly got so bright she couldn't see as she finally managed to give birth then that was just a sign that Paige was either cursed or blessed (take your pick).

But that thought only rested in her head for a second because the second the lights came back to normal (a heartbeat later) she had been handed her perfect, healthy, screaming baby girl and that had been the end of that.

Her baby had been perfect. She'd had a tuft of blonde hair that for the life of her Paige didn't know where she had gotten it from (carefully she did not open the box that contained her thoughts on her birth parents) and bright green eyes but she was hers. She was Paige's baby, Paige's baby girl that she had felt kicking away inside of her for nine months. It didn't matter who her father was because she was entirely Paige's own. They had each other…her and her baby girl. Some nameless, faceless stranger didn't matter. This little bundle in her arms staring up at her with her tiny hands and button nose and tiny creased up feat had been made by Paige Matthews, the only good thing Paige Matthews had ever done.

She was not going to take that for granted ever again.

For this little girl she was going to fight like hell to give her the life that she deserved.

Paige had always been a fighter.

She named her daughter Billie. It had been the only name that she had liked and she had steadfastly ignored the P section. She had no idea why the book kept flipping to the P section when she came back to looking at it or if she took her eye of it for a second but she thought it was so odd it just put her off the whole letter altogether.

That wasn't completely true though. Despite her intentions Billie's middle name was Peyton.

She didn't know what to make of that.

She was in a foster home until she aged out but the foster home she was in was one for other young mothers. She didn't speak to anyone there and she didn't ask for help though God knows she needed it in those days where she didn't have a clue what she was doing. She tried to make a job of it on her own and whenever Hollie came round she thought she was doing the best that she could but in truth she felt like she was a fraud with it.

"Your doing just fine Paige" her social worker told her gently. "You and Billie are doing just fine, look at her, she clearly loves spending time with you."

Paige looked down at Billie who was smiling up at her (though admittedly that could be gas) and she thought that she still felt like a fraud. She didn't know why but she felt as if she was totally alone in this one. There was no family for her either adopted or real.

Eventually though she had to age out. That was just the truth.

At Hollie's urging she wrote a powerful essay about being a teen mom after the death of her parents and somehow she managed to get into a decent college. Hollie's last act as her social worker was to make sure that she had support in place and while she didn't get the partying lifestyle and she didn't get the roommate that so many girls in college got she did get a group of boys and girls who shared her kitchen all of whom loved Billie.

Billie was an easy child to love. Paige had known she had loved her the second she had felt her move within her so it wasn't a surprise that Billie, now a toddling two year old with blonde hair and overalls and a little hat, managed to charm her way into getting cookies from college kids and though Paige worked two jobs to get it done she did. Billie might have had a diet of mac and cheese and she might have not had the newest barbie doll for Christmas but somehow Paige had managed to graduate both High School and College with her daughter and walking across that stage to see Billie curled up in the lap of one of her friends (with no clue what was going on no doubt) clapping away as she turned her tassel to the other side of her cap was one of the best things in the world.

It was not something Paige would recommend. She would not be used as some sort of advert for teen motherhood. She was adamant about that, there were times in those six years where she had honestly no idea how she had stayed alive. Times when she had been so stressed about money she'd thought that she was on the verge of a complete mental breakdown. There had been times she had been so exhausted by work both physical and school work that she had not slept or ate and times when she had cried herself to sleep. She'd not had a relationship or friends or the college experience that other girls had. She'd made it work for her daughter…everything that she had done had been for Billie and the love that she felt for that little girl eclipsed anything and everything that she had ever wanted for herself but the truth of the matter was that she was not some poster girl for the lifestyle. By the time she managed to get off assistance she had a six year old in school and no idea what she was going to do with her life.

And then her grandmother died.

Her father's mother had never really gelled well with Paige. It had just been one of those things, after the death of her son and Paige's pregnancy she had cut off all contact. Paige had never understood how a person could do that. She was not some baby that could be adopted, she had been a baby herself and she had needed someone to step in and support her. She looked at her daughter when she slept sometimes and wondered just how on Earth you could walk away from family like that so when the news of the death hit her in the newspaper one morning while she was staying in a motel trying to find a cheap apartment and she didn't know what to make of it other than to throw the newspaper away like it was on fire.

When the lawyers reached out to tell her the apartment was hers she felt almost sick. She had no idea why she was being offered an apartment in the prime spot of town and she had no idea what kind of crazy ass magic meant that paying rent wasn't an option.

Paige had her pride like the next woman but she was also a mother with a six year old living out of a roach motel so she took the damn thing with both hands and chalked it down to the first bit of magic she'd had in her life since her parents had died.

That was how she reconnected with Glen.

"Aint gonna lie Paige" he said one night when he came over with cheap wine and he ordered in Chinese. "I did not think our paths would ever cross again"

She had smiled and simply stuffed her face with an egg roll but the truth of the matter was that she agreed with his assessment. There was way to much history between them to by anything other than the occasional friends with benefits but falling into bed with him helped turn the constant noise off in her head and besides…since Billie's father (not that she could remember him) there had been nobody.

"Is Glen my Daddy Momma?" Billie had asked one day over breakfast and Paige had nearly upended the milk in her cereal in shock.

"No" she said truthfully because as much as Billie liked Glen and Glen liked Billie she knew that Glen was not looking to be a Dad or a husband or whatever other labels that came with being with her. She had a six year old and the promise of a job with social services (for after Hollie there was only one thing that Paige Matthews was ever going to do) and an apartment and bills to pay and a school for Billie and things were settling down and for once she thought to herself in the mirror that maybe, just maybe, she could do this.

"No baby" she said softly. "He's not"

"Oh" Billie said her face scrunched up in confusion. "Then who is?"

Paige dithered…she had no idea how she was supposed to tell her six year old that she had no idea who her Dad was so instead she went with a half-truth.

"He was a very nice man who…who had to go away because he knew that he couldn't look after us. But that doesn't matter does it? Because I can look after you?"

Bullshit Matthews. Complete and utter bullshit.

"You're the best Momma" Billie said chewing on her toast in response to that and Paige felt the knot of nerves release within her.

"Thank you baby. You're the best too"

Billie's little giggle was the best music she'd heard all day.

She told Glen it wasn't going to work that night.

He understood.

They stayed friends…both the real kind and…er…the other kind.

If you know what she meant.

Paige looked at herself in the mirror each morning and with time, with bitter…bitter time that slipped through her fingers and turned her sweet little baby into a young girl and then an adolescent and then a teenager she didn't just believe that she could do this, she knew it. and she proved it.

Billie went from a happy child to a happy teenager and at thirteen things were good. The apartment was a bit crappy now with age and she had stripped it so it looked nothing like her grandmother's and granted there was very little in the bank but thinking about where she had come from where she had been fifteen she knew she had done good. She had a career and Billie had a life and she had friends and somewhere down the line Paige had managed to dip her toe into the dating pool again. Shane was dangerous but just the right kind for her and he didn't judge her and he didn't mind Billie and Billie while on the fence about anyone that she brought home clearly didn't mind him.

He took her to the Halliwell Club, P3 sometimes and she danced to the music and lost herself into the beat.

She didn't know what it was about the sisters. She would see them sometimes, Prue, Piper and Phoebe at the bar and for reasons beyond her understanding she felt like she wanted to go over there and join in. To be a part of that close unit of sisters. It was bizarre because she had never met any of them before but there was something about the three of them that made her very soul ache. As if they had known each other on some level all her life.

But she ignored that, pushed that feeling away and the pain away. Billie was all the family she needed. Small blessings and all.

Life was good.

Until Billie who at thirteen was blonde and slender and full of attitude but still young enough to give her Mom a hug before she buttered her up for the eyeliner sat at the table.

"Mom can I have some coffee?"

"No"

"Momma! Christy Jenkins Mom—"

"Billie If I have to hear one more thing about Christy Jenkins Mom—"

Personally she wished Christy Jenkins would disappear.

(She would that night but Paige was not to know that otherwise she wouldn't have said it. And to be fair that had very little to do with her)

Just at that moment…it happened.

A rocking noise, almost like an earthquake rocked her apartment. Paige gripped onto the cabinet to keep herself upright as the shock ran through the place rattling dishes and knocking over books. The only photo (oddly enough) that fell over was the one of her and Billie taken by Hollie after she was born and as soon as the rocking started it had stopped.

"Billie?"

"I'm alright Mom…wrong time of year for an Earthquake isn't it?"

Paige nodded checking the time. God she hoped this hadn't affected traffic…nothing slowed down traffic like an Earthquake.

"Flip on the TV will you Bil? See where it hit"

Billie nodded and flipped on the TV and Paige picked up the photo and put it back on the shelf as you came into the apartment pride of place.

"Mom?"

"Yeah hun?"

"There not reporting an earthquake…they say there's been an explosion at the house of those sisters…you know the ones that own that club Shane likes taking you too?"

"The Halliwell sisters?"

"Yeah…the ones that have that really stunning house that they really shouldn't afford—"

"Billie stop reading the real estate section"

"Hey! A girl can dream Mom!"

Smiling at her daughter Paige turned to see that Billie was right. On the TV they were reporting some kind of explosion at the Halliwell Manor but she didn't understand how that explosion would affect her at the opposite side of town and how the news were reporting it so quick after the tremor that had gone through the earth.

"Looks like it happened a couple of hours ago but I don't—"

But Billie was cut off as the newscaster read out the breaking news.

"Just in we can now confirm that not only was Doctor Griffiths was killed in the attack on the house behind me but also one of the residents. We have received confirmation that one sister a Miss Prudence Halliwell has been confirmed to have been killed in the attack. Her sisters Piper and Phoebe were available to comment at this sad time and now back to the studio Ted—"

But Paige stopped listening.

Prue Halliwell was dead.

This made no sense, she never spoken to the woman, why did it feel like she too had lost her sister? Why did it feel like she was being gutted from the inside out?

"Mom?"

"Hmm?"

"You okay? You've gone kinda white?"

With a huge effort Paige swallowed and smiled wrapping her arm around her daughter.

"I'm fine baby, come on. I'll drive you to school this morning. Traffic's gonna be murder with all that's going on and…"

And she couldn't tell Billie her fear that something was going to happen.

She wanted to see her daughter walk through the gates.

"Okay" Billie said seeing this and maybe understanding more than Paige wanted her too…her clever little girl who was not that little anymore.

Paige turned off the TV and watched as her daughter grabbed her bag and she swallowed forcing a smile on her face.

The death of Prue Halliwell was tragic and unexpected but it had nothing to do with Paige Matthews and her daughter Billie she told herself as she left her apartment.

So why did it feel like everything from this moment was going to change?

And there you go, let me know what you think and I will do my best to bring you the next chapter sooner rather than later.

Next Chapter-Paige goes looking for answers, Billie follows her mother, Piper and Phoebe's lives are rocked again and nothing for either the Halliwell sister's or the Matthew's girls will ever be the same again.