Hi so here is another chapter, I hope you enjoy this one and I will do my best to bring you the next one sooner rather than later. There are only eight more chapters left of this story but there are more Charmed stories coming so please stay tuned.

And I want to thank you all for your patience in waiting for this chapter, there has been a lot of personal issues going on recently, hopefully they have now been resolved.

There is now only eight more chapters left and these will bring us to the end of Season 7 and one episode of Season 8 (ish). I don't intend to go much into the Billie/Christie thing because I didn't like it at all and Season 8 wasn't the same as the other brilliant Seasons but I will touch on Forever Charmed a little.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine just this story.

Please Read and Review .

And thank you all for sticking with this story through the hard times, I appreciate that I have been a bit absent recently but rest assured I am back and so is this story.


Mother Of Invention

Chapter 22-The One That Got Away

Part Two of the Two part handler and the last of Season 6. Paige, Cole and Phoebe are stuck in an utopian world and things are beginning to crack. It's going to take a whole lot of magic to get out of this one.


"I can't believe it, I don't believe, I won't believe it"

"Believe it Phoebe Gideon is the one hunting down Wyatt and now he's decided to take Billie with him on a buy one get one free deal"

"COLE!"

Cole winced dotting at his cut on the back of his hand.

"Sorry Paige, look…Zankou is on the case and as strange as that sounds for me to say and for you to hear that is probably a good thing. He's not going to let anything happen to his child certainly not by an Elder. Even if it isn't paternal love—which for his it is—it's a point of pride. No self-respecting demon would survive the Underworld if an Elder got the better of them"

He shuddered as if to prove a point. Paige wasn't sure how comforting she found that.

They had managed to escape their demon doppelgängers and they taken up residence in magic school.

"This amount of cheerfulness is sickening" Cole said finally. "And Piper is half forgotten what she knows and is set for a nightmare delivery…you too should go to her. I can stay here and see what can be done on that mirror…at the very least I can get to Zankou"

"How can you be sure?" Phoebe asked turning to her husband. Cole eyed the mirror for a second and then…

"I have my ways. But get to Piper, if he thinks this way about Wyatt then he might come back for baby Chris, take the danger away at the source when it all started—God knows it's what I would do"

"Cole—"

"Paige the second I hear she's safe then I will call you"

Phoebe nodded and Paige nodded too. Her insides were a mess of pain and panic and rage. She had known for a while now that it might be Gideon. But to hear that she was right had not given her a great deal of satisfaction—instead it had given her nothing short of such an attack of rage that she had kicked ass.

Phoebe turned to her husband and she noticed that Cole's hand sneaked down to her stomach. She remembered doing that herself when she had been pregnant, raising an eyebrow she left them to their little moment but the minute Phoebe was back outside the door she grabbed her by the hand.

"So your pregnant?"

"What?"

"Phoebe?"

Phoebe bit her lip but this time it was to hide the smile.

"I think I am"

Paige stared at her and then she hugged her. She tried to put a lot of things into that hug that she didn't know how to say and that she didn't want to say. She didn't know what the correct thing to say was in this moment, she didn't know if she should mention the previous miscarriage or the fact that Phoebe had gone into battle knowing she might be pregnant, clearly Cole thought she was.

At the same time she was happy.

Happy for her sister, happy for the smile that was back on her face and the light that was back in her eye. It had been nearly two years since Phoebe had been pregnant, there had been no discussion of a baby since the miscarriage even though she and Cole had gotten through it had been a taboo subject in a house that was too open at the best of times.

At the same time she was terrified for her daughter, for her other sister, for both of her nephews and so she gripped Phoebe's hand and together they went in search of Piper to go and find her before Gideon came looking to take their other nephew away from them.


Cole breathed in and then breathed out and stood in front of the mirror. Unlike his wife and sister in law who had come face to face with each other in evil form there was nobody standing in front of the mirror but himself. He stood there and stared at the reflection and then he reached out and touched the glass which moulded into his touch. Human he might be but he knew enough about these things to know how it would work.

"What?"

"Zankou?"

"Oh it's you" Zankou said looking through the mirror. Evil beings travelled through worlds differently and so Zankou stuck his whole head through the glass his body in one realm and his head in another.

"What happened?"

"Gideon"

"No shit" Cole said sharply. "He's got up trapped in some bizzarro utopia where everything bad is a capital offence and Piper may or may not be dying does he have—"

"Wyatt and my daughter no. But he's coming for them"

"You're ready?"

"Ready as I can be. Here's the problem though, Chris the elder got stabbed"

"Fuck"

"Yes well…Leo wasn't too happy but my guess is right now there is some intense fatherly rage, I understand it only too well…but you know what breaks this?"

Cole nodded. He had not wanted to say it in front of Phoebe or Paige, both of them choosing to believe in the goodness of good magic but sometimes you needed dark magic to take on dark magic. This was the time, one of the times anyway where he really, really missed Prue. Prue would understand it, Prue would understand that sometimes good people had to do terrible things so that other good people got their happy endings. Prue had been able to see the big picture at the end. He had gotten used to Paige, loved her even as Phoebe's sister but she was not Prue and it was times like this that he missed the dark haired woman more than he ever dared to put into words. Thorn in his ass she may have been but Prue Halliwell would have never let Gideon pull the wool over their eyes. Prue was never one for sleeping at the wheel. And that undoubtably is what they were all—Cole included—guilty off.

"You know what is going to break this don't you?"

"I have an inkling"

"Do the sisters?"

"No"

Zankou sighed. "A great act of evil by a good person" he said shaking his head. "Damn. I don't know what is going to happen I really don't."

There was a pause and then.

"What are they going to do?"

"Right now guard their sister. Gideon's going to go after what he can now that the game is up. And then if he doesn't get Chris then he will come to the Underworld. Are you ready?"

"Don't insult me"

"Alright. Just…just be prepared, this bastard will fight dirty"

Zankou grinned showing his perfect teeth—bastard—Cole thought.

"Oh I'm ready for that" he said and then he disappeared


Billie was playing a game with the baby in the sand when the first crackle of magic appeared. She shoved Wyatt under the cot that was her father's bed and stood up. Zankou had gone to speak to someone about how to find her mother but as Gideon appeared she suddenly really wanted him back.

He arrived with a menacing smile. All of the time he had been kind and wise and generous and now she was seeing the monster within.

The first blast of magic knocked her backwards with a shout and she crumpled onto the floor her knee smacking into hard rock and her head doing the same. She had a second to realise she was bleeding when he came for her, she shimmered out on instinct appearing behind him and kicking him in the back. She was not her Aunt Phoebe when it came to kickboxing but Billie had been learning the basics and she was good.

Gideon went flying but he went flying in a way that allowed him to see Wyatt. He turned whirling curse on his lips but at that moment Billie launched herself at him knocking him to the ground, Gideon turned in a whirl of black and his hands found her throat and squeezed so tightly she gagged. He hit her twice and she was sure something was broken on her face if the smattering of blood was anything to go by, she pushed back with her magic and she threw him backwards but before he hit the wall he pushed backwards through sheer power alone to land on his feet. Billie could feel the blood dripping back from her head and then before she could move someone else was there.

For a second she thought it was her father.

But it wasn't.

It was Leo.

"GET DOWN!" he shouted and she threw herself to floor sand getting everywhere as the two Elders began to fight. Lightening met lightening in a blinding powerful, shattering display of magic and she barely had enough time to stretch out her hands into the sand, she couldn't move didn't dare move to Wyatt who was still hiding under the bed and she closed her eyes and breathed through her nose trembling. She felt an increase of the power coming from the side behind her and Gideon screamed and Leo screamed right back and then there was a BANG of such epic proportions that it rocked all around them and then finally the magic stopped and she opened her eyes to see Gideon was gone.

She flipped on her back but Leo wasn't looking at her. He walked straight past her to hook his son out from under the bed. It took her brain a second to realise what he must have done and then someone else was in her vision.

Her father.

Dark eyes were wide with concern and Billie started to smile and to tell him that everything was going to be alright but the darkness pressed down on her and she remembered nothing more.


Zankou did not like white places. He was a demon his natural place was in the dark it was why he dressed all in black—that and it made his arse pop but still—he hated septic bright places.

Hospitals.

The damn Elder had taken his son and gone straight to his wife and that had left him to take his unconscious daughter and that damned book with him to the same place. Leo had taken the worst of it off he suspected but the nurse person had told him that his daughter needed to be left alone for a while, while she rested. Personally Zankou knew something else was wrong here and he was half a mind to start blasting but he knew that were one sister was the one tended to follow so he sat down on the hard plastic chairs and eventually began to read the damn book because…well…he could.

There was the sound of running heels and he looked up slamming the book shut on a rather boring page about goblins to see the double doors slam open and Paige came through them with enough force of nature to blast them off.

"Where?"

He pointed at the door.

"They won't speak to me" he began but she smiled and her smile was feral.

"Oh but they will damn well speak to me" she snarled and then she was off and Zankou figured he might as well follow her so he took the book with him.

"LET ME IN TO SEE MY DAUGHTER NOW OR I WILL TIE YOU DOWN IN SO MUCH LITERATION YOUR GRANDCHILDREN WILL BE ON BENFITS"

Fuck she was sexy when she was like this he thought.

The nurse perhaps fearing for her life opened the curtain and there Billie was. Zankou slammed the curtain in her face and then for good measure he waved his hand to make sure that she wasn't listening. From now on anyone other than the Halliwell's or their husbands would have to rush off again.

God he loved magic sometimes.

Billie was awake but she looked like hell. And as someone who lived there that was saying something, the fight with Gideon had left her with a bruised face littered with cuts and scratches and a nose that was almost certainly broken. Her lip was split and around her throat was hand marks and if that fucking Elder wasn't already dead Zankou would hit him again and again and again with so much pain until he was literally begging for the end of the torment.

"M—"

"Don't speak darling, Leo can heal you and then we can go home. You did good Billie, Wyatt is safe, Chris is safe, Gideon is gone. Everything else is fine"

"The Book—"

"I have the book"

Paige stiffened but said nothing. She stroked their daughter's hair back for a moment and then.

"Go to sleep for me okay and when I next wake you up it will be just fine"

"You and Dad going?"

"No" she said and dimmed blue eyes looked straight at him.

"No" he said quietly. "I am fine here too"

Maybe they could dim the lights?

Billie closed her eyes and dropped back into the drug induced haze.

Paige waited seconds until she was sure their daughter was still asleep and then she turned to look at him.

"Explain. Now"

"How much do you want"

She paused looking at him and then…

"All of it. Don't hold back"

And so he told her. He told her about Billie and Wyatt and Gideon in the attic, told her about what he knew about Chris, told her about his conversation with Cole, how he had been having that conversation when Gideon had appeared. How Leo had killed him.

Paige sighed when he was finished.

"Well…at least the fucker's dead"

"You were right about him" he said quietly.

"I didn't want to be right." she sighed. "I'll get Leo to heal her when he has a second but…it's gonna take a long time for this family to heal from this betrayal"

She shook her head and he saw the tears in her eyes and it made him hurt.

"Don't" he said and then he took her face in his hands so her big eyes looked at him.

"Don't cry" he said flatly. "You're a survivor, our daughter is a survivor. Someone tried to kill you both and you are alive. That isn't something that either one of you should cry about."

She looked at him and her eyes were over bright.

"How did the book come to you?"

"It trusts me now I think"

"Good" she said and this time her tears slipped overboard staining his fingers.

"Because I know I am in love with you"

He stared at her but she was already speaking before he could.

"I know you can't say it back and I know why and I understand it. I just…I needed you to know, I love you and I love our daughter and I want…I want…I don't care how messed up this is, I want another go at it, what we should have had when we were fifteen or at least when I was. I want another baby and you in my bed and your baby in my belly. I don't need a ring or a white dress or anything like that but I do need you. I need you and her and I am not asking you to be good or to stop being who you are I just…I just need you to understand that this is who I am and that I can't change it but…but I also can't change that I am in love with you"

There was a pause as she sniffed but Zankou was tilting her head up until the bright eyes were looking at him again.

"I can't say it back" he confessed. "But I feel it. I know what it is and I feel it for you. I can't say it to you yet, not because of what I am but because of what I have lost. I don't know if I can have another child with you I don't know if I can try. I think that might have to be one of those pesky fate things. But I can compromise. I can be a demon and help you take out the next threat that comes for our daughter. I don't know what it looks like past that. But what you feel for me, I feel for you."

She bit her lip and then as soon as her teeth hit the plump lip he tugged it loose again with her thumb. His hands found the back of her legs and he lifted her into his embrace and his mouth came down on hers. Tongues meshed together for a second and then she burrowed her head into his neck her legs wrapped around his waist and he smiled into the mass of dark hair.

No neither one of them could say for definite what their future looked like. But they were living in the present for now.

And nothing, nobody and especially not the Elders were going to stop them, Paige, Zankou and Billie, Piper, Leo, Wyatt and Chris and Phoebe, Cole and their new baby from being anything less than perfectly happy.


And there you go. On to Season 7.

Next Chapter-The gang try to recover from Gideon by trying to be as normal as possible but that's not working to well as magic school is about to be shut, Billie is having nightmares, Godiva's in the living room, Phoebe is pregnant, Zankou has moved in, Daryl is working alone (no Inspector Sheridan and he's still talking to them) on a case with missing witches and the Elders want to know why the Charmed One's aren't picking up. Oh, and that's before we get to Leo. AKA the first four episodes of Season 7.