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 seven 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 four more chapters left and these will bring us to the end of Season 7. I was planning to do one for Season 8 but it might be more like the final five minutes with the sisters writing in the book to be honest.

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.

Again in case it wasn't made clear in earlier episodes I DESPISE THE ELDERS. There were moments where I legit rooted for the Avatars. At least until...well...Anyway I always wanted the sisters to take on the Elders and finally they did in Season 7 a little.

I tend to do a mass update around Christmas so I will update the final chapters hopefully with this one and bring this story to a close.

Mother Of Invention

Chapter 26-Mistakes We Made

Paige and Zankou are forced to do some talking when they are trapped in a Noir book.

"Hello?"

She turned and stared at Zankou. He was leaning against the wall of the door to Magic School and watching her.

"Billie's at school"

"I know."

"Do you?"

"I am not completely useless when it comes to the modern day world" he said with a smirk. "I know enough to know that Billie is at school and you are here. I went to the house and Phoebe said there had been an…incident at Magic School."

"Did she say if she was calling Daryl?"

"No. She implied that she would but she had not rang him. Apparently there is something about magic school that puts his blood sugar rather high. I think he has a point. This place stinks of good magic."

"And what does that smell like?"

"Industrial cleaning products"

She turned to ask just what the hell he was on about but before she could he nodded at the gnome.

"What happened?"

"Someone shot him"

"I don't understand"

"No neither do I."

There was a pause and then.

"Do you want to talk, fight or fuck because I can do all three"

She put down her magnifying glass.

"I don't know what you mean. I asked a question and I got an answer."

"No you didn't"

"Yes I did."

"No you didn't" he said pushing himself off the wall. "You asked me something out of the blue and I can concede that I did not handle it well but the truth was you asked…Paige it was so random and…" he shook his head.

She picked up the book not wanting to look at him and flipped through it.

"What?"

"The streets were quiet after Shorty died. To quiet"

"What?" he asked this time coming to stand next to her. Paige looked up and got it as soon as the book in her hands started to shake.

And that was how they ended up in the noir world.

"This is exceptionally strange and very annoying"

"What?"

"I don't have magic. I DON'T HAVE MAGIC. How do you people live like this?"

Paige smiled despite herself. It was hard for Zankou to get it. When they had landed in the Noir world and they were now black and white she had thought it was a joke. Now they were trapped with no magic in the thirties in some magical book with men chasing them with guns. She sighed putting on the dress. She knew she looked good in it but Zankou had refused to change calling it a point of principle. She ducked out and watched as he eyed her for a second. She smiled. Somehow it was easy to forget about everything that had gone on between them when he looked at her like that.

"You know we could always do something else…"

"Hush. We need to find this Eddie guy"

"Right the guy who might have the falcon. I do not understand what the need is to own a bird."

Paige snorted.

"When all of this is over I am going to take you to a movie and then you will understand what I mean when I say Falcon" she said smiling.

Zankou paused and then.

"Do you want to talk then?"

"No"

"Paige…"

"You don't want children…"

"I do not know if I want children" he said flatly. "I did not plan to have Billie you know. And the two children I did plan I lost. So when you asked me…it was genuinely the first time since I lost my boys that I thought about having more babies."

She paused. She had considered it but at the same time not considered it and so she swallowed.

"Oh" she said quietly.

"Yes" he said grabbing what looked like a wickedly sharp knife and twirling it in a way that would make a serial killer jealous.

She still did not know what to say to that.

"We should find Eddie"

"I know"

"I can't change how I feel"

"I know that too"

"I love you"

He smiled at her this time and it was the special one, the real one that he saved for her and her alone and it tended to give her butterflies.

"I am not saying no" he said finally. "I don't think I can ever say no to you Paige. I am not saying it I just…I don't know yet. I did not think this was ever going to be a thing down the line"

"Might have been better if I'd just gotten pregnant out the blue"

"Perhaps" he said smiling. "I just…let's go and find this Eddie person. Then we can talk, but we should talk…Cole made me realise that we needed to talk"

She nodded following him out of the room.

"It's strange hearing you talk about him like a man and not a demon"

"Yes"

"Your just as mortal as he is in this world."

Zankou stopped dead and eyed her for a second with a side eye that made her grin wickedly.

"That" he said with his own wicked grin. "Is going to cost you"

"What a spanking?"

"Don't tempt me girl"

And despite all that had gone between the two of them she grinned.

That was an idea she might want to tap into later.

Providing she lived through a later.

There was something to be said for having no magic.

Mainly he hated it.

Okay…so perhaps it was nice to no longer hear the voices that sometimes resided in his head but it was also jarring. Amongst those voices was the memories of his wife and children and now that he was losing them it felt very off putting. For too long he had depended on those words to keep him going.

Now they were gone and he had no magic and this Eddie man had turned out to be a traitor and they were now being trapped two of the most laughable thugs that he had ever seen. Granted these gun thingys could kill him but Zankou had thought they paled compared to the weapons that he had seen in his past. He had his blade out ready and he was watching. God knows if he had proved one thing over the last ten or so centuries it was that you did not need magic to kill. The only thing he did not like was that they had separated him from Paige. He could understand the tactics but it made his teeth rattle.

"Well?"

"Well what?" he asked dragging his eyes back up to soon to be dead man one. "I was not paying attention."

Soon to be dead man one giggled. Actually fucking giggled. Zankou knew he was going to kill him for that and that alone. Grown men do not giggle. At least not if they are trying to be terrifying and intimidating.

There's a pause as he stares up at the man.

"Where's the Falcon"

"Oh like I know? I thought it was a bird—"

"Ah he's funny Eddie…you hear that? He's funny"

Zankou shot Eddie a look and then.

"My name is Zankou. You won't have heard of me son. But I am the original demon and she next door is a Charmed One. So you had better hope she gets to you before I do"

Eddie blinked at him and soon to be dead man one giggled again. "Ah you hear that Eddie? Well…if you won't give me the answer perhaps the little lady will? You know she's all dolled up and pretty kinda asking for it if you ask me. Maybe I'll make you watch"

It was the wrong thing to say.

Suddenly all he could see was his wife her eyes wide and filled with terror, rapidly filling with tears as she tried to stay strong, he could smell the blood in the air, hear the crackle of the fire feel the heat of it on his face. He could see Jerrick with his manic grin and Iris sat there with her red silk robes pouting when another slave died and suddenly he was out of his seat knife in hand and he had slashed.

He got the man around the throat and he gargled blood. Knife stuck in flesh he yanked it out and Zankou watched as he became his own murderer. Blood splattered across the wall and the window and he heard Paige scream from the opposite room and concluded she was seeing it. He had no idea if the sisters were writing the book at this point or if he had taken the pen out of their hands but as the other guard went for him he snapped his neck easily as if he was snapping a breadstick. He'd had a lot of practice.

"No apologies" he said and he meant it for the sisters. "No apologies for this. You don't know what I have been through. You don't know what those words trigger for me."

And with that Paige opened the door. She was here, she was unharmed…she was alive.

And just like that Zankou knew that whatever she wanted he would give her. Just like that he would. Because this was real. To him at any rate this was as real as it could be.

"What the…" but he had already moved to grab Eddie. He put himself between the traitor and Paige and bared his teeth knife in hand.

"No!" she shouted grabbing his arm. "We need him! We need him to get out of here and to do that we need him! He has to write the end of the story that's how this works"

For a second he could barely focus, he could smell the incense up his nose and then he dropped the kid like a stone.

He did not know if Paige could see it, if she could see it in his eyes how badly he was shaken, how vulnerable he was but he leaned into her and she wrapped both her arms around him uncaring that she was standing in a room with two dead bodies, blood on her shoes and a kid who'd just seen the death of two characters he'd created.

"Your good" she said quietly. "Your good."

"Don't think upstairs will agree with me"

"Don't worry about them" she said quietly. "You killed two people who were going to kill me. And they were…everyone will understand"

"Did they touch—"

"No. But I know the signs. So we will walk out of here together and find the falcon, go home to the peace and serenity of our bedroom and talk when we are more settled okay?"

He nodded. She could have said she was hand delivering him to the Elders and he would have nodded. He was too raw, too emotional and it was grating on him, jarring him to the point of no return and she knew it and he knew it.

If he leaned on her as they left the room the traumatised idiot who had caused all this mess in tow then that was between her and him.

"So you found the falcon?"

"Yeah"

"It was a stone bird" Zankou said flicking the dried blood of his hands. "All of that for a stone fucking bird"

Piper watched him for a second and then.

"Yeah."

He looked at her and the pain in his gaze nearly stole her breath. It was a mirror image she thought of what she used to see when she looked at herself in the mirror after Prue died. That agony where it was the little things that she remembered. Even now she couldn't look at the little black dresses at the back of her closet nor could she look at the date book that had meetings in it that her sister had never attended.

"Kids shouldn't mess with magic" he said finally. "This whole thing was totally avoidable. And now those parents have lost one child and twenty years of their lives with the other one. And that dumb kid has to think about that every day"

She nodded.

"Very true. But there's a happiness there in rebuilding. At some point you have to let go of the past."

Again he looked at her and she could see that he wanted to ask her but he refrained. She was glad. Leo was in the room. Paige was there, Phoebe had gone to get Billie from her friends house. She was not in the best space to talk about Prue and she knew that his past as complicated and agonising as it was for him (and she had to concede she did not know much) was not something that he wanted to discuss.

She nibbled her lip for a second as Paige came back into the room.

"Piper do you think you can handle Billie for a bit?" she asked quietly. "I know we have to speak and I will speak to her tomorrow but now I just want to go to bed"

"Yes" she said on reflex and she was aware that Leo was standing next to her. She didn't have a clue what was on with him but right now she was just glad that he was with her.

"I'll make her something and send her onto bed. I'll explain what happened but not go into details. You guys want me to send some food?"

Paige nodded. Zankou was still staring at the blood on his hands. He didn't seem bothered by it just curious by it and she did not know what to say. Prue would have done she thought suddenly. Prue would have known what to say exactly. She had always known how to handle Cole. It was only Piper who sometimes felt even now that she had to play catch up.

They disappeared down the stairs and suddenly she leaned on her husband exhausted. Leo's arms wrapped around her and she felt warm and safe and vulnerable.

"You need to go?"

"No" he said into her hair. "You want me to stay?"

"Yes" she said quietly. "I want you to stay"

There was more here to discuss and she knew it, there was more here to talk about and she knew it because this was too rapid a turn around even if she wasn't battle hardened and weary and cynical.

But she was too tired and she just wanted her husband so she leaned into his embrace and forgot everything else.

Sometimes that was more than enough.

Actually…that was everything.

And there you go, I hope you enjoy and I will do my best to bring you the rest of it sooner rather than later.

Next Chapter-As the Avatars make their move the sisters play catch up. Zankou finds himself separated from his family as does Cole and as Leo realises the depths of his mistakes the race is on for the three men to reverse what has happened.