Work Text:
The timestream could be a difficult concept for any being to grasp. Even individuals capable of manipulating the flow of time, such as Tempus or the Cleaners, could only push it so far before it would reject their efforts. For all their power, certain aspects of time remain a secret to them, and it typically requires great effort for even the most powerful to learn more of these particular secrets. Even the idea of alternate timelines, while fascinating as a concept, is one that is not fully understood by those aware of it, raising questions regarding what triggers such divergences and if there are limits to how reality can split.
However, while history can take many directions even with the Grand Design taken into account, certain things are still seemingly inevitable beyond the obvious. If the timeline had been aware in the sense that human beings are, it would have experienced the equivalent of a monetary indigestion as a certain warlock from a possible future took steps to make his own reality inevitable, only to be defeated by the same temporal ripple he had initially exploited. In other circumstances, such a minor irritation would have been nothing significant, but in this particular version of events, something happened that would provide one individual with a particularly significant history with new insights into her life.
Every so often, those with particularly significant timelines are given an opportunity to see what things would have been like if their lives had played out another way…
Paige wasn't sure what had drawn her to this particular alleyway after the day they'd had. Miles's death had been a tragedy, but it had been a purely mortal tragedy, and Phoebe seemed to accept that. Paige didn't even have any reason to particularly care about his death; it wasn't that she hadn't liked Miles, but at the same time he hadn't exactly connected with her in any way, so there was no reason for her to be that interested in seeing where he had died.
Still, there was something going on in this alley… something that drew her here once she was sure that Phoebe wasn't going to be that down this evening… something that felt like it had something to do with Piper's vague comment about 'a premonition of her own'…
Paige couldn't explain it to herself, but she could just feel something different in this place that she hadn't felt before. A part of her felt briefly reminded of the sensation from when she had first met her biological grandmother, but this felt very distinct… as though she felt a deeper connection compared to what she'd experienced then…
It was only when her hand touched a particular part of the wall that she felt a sudden surge of magic-
For a moment, Paige had no idea where she was. Everything around her was glowing and dark somehow at the same time, as though things were flashing by around her so quickly that the dark was simultaneously instantly dispelled and never given the 'chance' to fade. Just as she was about to feel explicitly sick, the disorientation came to an abrupt halt and Paige found herself standing in some strange grey realm that superficially resembled the attic, but without the Book of Shadows in the centre or any of the other magical items she'd become used to seeing there.
"What-?" Paige began, only to stop as she heard two other voices speaking at the same time. Turning around, Paige couldn't stop herself from jumping back in shock as she found herself facing two other women, one with dark hair and wearing dark trousers and a sleeveless top while the other was a blonde in a dark red jacket and jeans-
"Oh my God!" Paige yelled along with the other two women as she took in their faces.
Seeing it in person rather than in a mirror threw Paige off for a moment, but these other women…
"You're me!" Paige called out, only for the other two to do the same. Lost for any better ideas on what to do at this time, Paige shifted into a defensive stance she recalled seeing Phoebe use, while the other in red jumped back to press against the wall of the 'attic', and the dark one…
Paige could only stare in confusion as her 'dark double' flicked her hands at Paige and 'blonde Paige' in a manner she was very familiar with from seeing Piper in action so often, even if it didn't make sense seeing herself do it.
"Why aren't you…" the other Paige said, looking desperately at the other two as she kept flicking her hands.
"Because we aren't evil?" Paige looked at the other her with a slight shake of her head, hoping she wasn't jumping to completely the wrong conclusion. "Seriously, we haven't even attacked you yet and you're trying to freeze us rather than talk?"
"I've… had a rough time of it," the other Paige said, her hands still raised even if she wasn't still trying to (apparently) freeze the other two women. "People have so many expectations of what I'll be capable of-"
"You've have a rough time of it?" the blonde said sceptically. "Try getting dragged into this whole new lifestyle and only getting visions out of it-!"
"Visions?" Paige turned her attention to the blonde, a sudden suspicion striking her that she wasn't sure how to feel about. "You have visions?"
"Yeah?" the blonde said, looking at her with a new sense of cautious curiosity. "Why's that a big deal?"
"Jacket," Paige said, holding out her hand. Just as she'd hoped, the other woman's red jacket vanished from her upper body and reappeared in Paige's hands, leaving the blonde wearing an orange long-sleeved top.
"Hey!" the blonde grabbed the jacket back defensively, only to shift her gaze to look at Paige in confusion. "How did you… do that?"
"Phoebe thought that the Whitelighter in me meant that I manifest that power… differently," Paige said, unsure if she wanted her theory to be correct even as she was starting to suspect what she was dealing with.
"Phoebe?" the blonde looked at her with a new sense of apprehension even as she shrugged the jacket back on. "You… you knew Phoebe? Phoebe Halliwell?"
"Knew?" the dark-haired woman looked between the two in frustration. "What are you talking about? Phoebe's fine-"
"But Piper isn't, right?" Paige looked at her dark-haired counterpart in cautious understanding, hoping that her vague memories of watching certain sci-fi shows wasn't leading her up the wrong tree. "At least… your Piper isn't."
"My Pip- Piper Halliwell died a week before I even got to meet Prue and Phoebe-!" the woman in black began defensively.
"Piper's not dead-!" the blonde began to say, reaching out to grab the other two-
A dark-haired woman Paige had never met but she recognised as Prue from the rare family photographs left around the house lay on the floor amid a pile of rubble, Piper just a short distance away with a bloody nose and hands, leaves all over the entrance hall and an unknown man's body draped through the window, Leo bent over Piper to heal the woman Paige would always consider her eldest sister even as he ignored the woman beside her…
Leo and the dark-haired woman- Prue- cleared away a pile of rubble in the mansion to find Piper lying under it, her body so still and twisted that Paige knew Leo wouldn't be able to do anything even before she saw the devastated expression on his face, the rest of the manor interior basically the same as it was in the last vision…
Phoebe, Cole and Leo were in a cave system that Paige recognised as the underworld, surrounded by a group of men who had to be demons; a dark-skinned demon with dreadlocks fired an energy ball at Cole just as Phoebe pushed him out of the way, the ball reducing Phoebe to dust as Cole let out an anguished scream, Leo only able to stare in horror…
"Oh God," Paige said as she stepped back from the other two women, only briefly aware that the other two were doing the same thing.
"Prue died?" the other two women looked at Paige in shock.
"Piper died?" Paige and the blonde looked at the dark-haired woman.
"Phoebe died?" Paige turned to the blonde, only just aware of the dark-haired woman doing the same.
"Oh my God," Paige said once again, staring between the other two women- the other two hers- as she took in what she had just realised. "We… we're all from worlds where a different sister died…"
"Different sister?" the dark-haired woman repeated before she shook her head. "No, wait, I get it; you replaced Prue, I replaced Piper, you replaced Phoebe…"
"Yeah, and I never get how I should feel about that," the blonde woman- the blonde Paige- said in exasperation. "I get that it kind of helps that I'm still the youngest of the three of them, but everyone expects to be… I don't know, I think that since Phoebe was the one most keen on being a witch, they think I should be a bit more gung-ho about the whole magic thing?"
"And you're not?" Paige looked at her blonde self (impulsively, she decided to call the blonde Paige-3 and the dark-haired one Paige-2, based on the sister they had 'replaced'). "I mean… Phoebe is the one who's more eager to tell me stuff about magic, but they're always telling me I don't have to compare myself to Prue…"
"Yeah, and that is a whole other mess," Paige-3 shook her head.
"A mess?" Paige looked uncertainly at the other her. "You mean… Prue?"
"Don't get me wrong, she's never been bad to me, but every time it's just the two of us… she's never said that she wishes it was Phoebe here instead of me, but I sometimes think she's just… holding herself back from really bonding with me so that she doesn't have to get hurt if I die," Paige-3 said, her expression awkward as she looked between the other two. "It's not like she ignores me or she doesn't get that I'm my own person, but I feel like she's never sure how to relate to me as me…"
"Huh," Paige smiled slightly. "Piper's kind of the opposite; she gets that we're different people, but she can't quite stop trying to mother me and Phoebe and keep an eye on us both even before she got pregnant-"
"Piper's pregnant!"
"Yeah," Paige nodded, looking curiously at Paige-3 (she would not think about how Piper could never have kids in Paige-2's world). "She's… not in your world?"
"She and Leo are trying, but it's just… I guess it's taking a bit longer in my world than it is for yours," Paige-3 said tentatively. "Maybe it's worrying about Cole…"
"Cole?" Paige-2 asked before she winced as something apparently occurred to her. "Oh boy… he didn't handle Phoebe's death well?"
"Last we heard of him… well, we're pretty sure he's gone off to the Underworld on a revenge-fuelled rampage against the Source and various other demons," Paige-3 nodded with a grim expression. "Piper wants to hope for the best and thinks he might return to us if he decides he wants help, but Prue keeps saying we should focus on our own problems."
"Harsh," Paige-2 said with a pointed stare at her other self.
"Hey, I just try and stay out of it," Paige-3 said. "I didn't really get to know him that well, so I don't think I really have the right to say anything about it, but from what Piper's told me about him and Phoebe… well, without her to help Cole hold on to his humanity, Piper's a bit worried about him…"
"And you too?" Paige looked at her other self in surprise. "Did you even have time to talk with him? I can't imagine he even bothered to stick around if Phoebe… wasn't there."
"He got Leo back to the manor in time to tackle Shax before that guy could do too much damage, and he stayed to help out for a while once Darryl helped them sort out the legal side of things in terms of getting Phoebe declared dead, but…" Paige-3 shrugged awkwardly as the other two looked curiously at her. "Cole said he wanted to protect what Phoebe died for, but from what he told Leo a few weeks later, seeing me basically taking Phoebe's place was too hard for him, so he just… went off. We've heard a few reports of something attacking the demons in the underworld, and after how big a deal his original defection was we're pretty sure he's still out there doing… OK, his own style of good, but-"
"Or he's just planning his own coup in your world like he did in mind."
"Coup?" Paige's other selves looked at her in surprise.
"Cole became the Source in my world."
"He what?"
"But- when Phoebe was there?" Paige-2 shook her head in shock. "Why would he do that?"
"…No idea," Paige admitted, suddenly feeling awkward as she realised she'd never seriously thought about that question before. It had seemed easy to just go with her knee-jerk assumption that Cole was evil because she'd been able to get past the idea that he'd never stopped being evil, but when faced with another version of herself so shocked at the idea of Cole being evil…
"I mean," she said at last, feeling a need to say something, "he had some trouble getting used to being human after we were able to strip Belthazor from him…"
"He let you strip his powers?" Paige-3 asked.
"More like he had to go full demon to take out this other guy and the potion was the only way we could snap him out of it, but he… well, I guess it seemed likehe'd accepted it," Paige explained. "Then there was this mess when the Source did something stupidly dangerous trying to kill us, and Cole and the Seer made some kind of deal to stop him that led to Cole becoming the new Source-"
Paige's explanation was cut short when Paige-3 reached out to grab her arm again-
"Even now," the Seer's voice said as Cole faced the Source, "I can see the void where your demon half used to exist…"
"If we got our powers back," Paige heard her own voice say (she remembered that question), "where did the Source's powers go?"
"Into the void," the Seer spoke, as Paige saw something… she couldn't explain what she was looking at, except that it was something powerful and evil… go from the crystal cage she, Piper and Phoebe had used to trap the Source and enter Cole…
She could see herself being taunted by Cole as she struggled against the demonic power that had been transferred into her… saw Piper and Phoebe sobbing over her body… saw Cole offer up a plan to save her as the power within him seemed to retreat…
"Did you do it for credit? Or for love?" the Seer said again, as Paige saw Cole's eyes flash black while he glared at a group of demons in a threatening manner.
"I suppose there are some things even the Source can't defeat," the Seer continued, Paige now looking at the Seer addressing Cole directly. "Cole is the one threat neither of us can control; he saved Paige, not you."
"Cole's voice used to scream inside my head," Cole spoke, even as there was an edge to his voice that Paige hadn't heard that often. "Now it's just a whisper…"
"If Cole's love becomes any stronger, it will overpower the Source, then you will lose everything," the Seer's voice said as Paige saw Cole reject a blonde woman in black with a thin face.
"The Source is gone," Cole's voice said, but Paige now saw him standing in a desolate landscape that matched what Phoebe had described of the wasteland. "I can hide from the beast, but your love is what helps keep me together…"
"I'm gonna use my powers to help people, make up for my past…" Cole's voice said, the view shifting to Cole walking through the San Francisco streets, followed by flashes of Cole in moments Paige couldn't ignore even if she wanted to; his sacrifice during that recent confrontation with Barbas, saving that future Whitelighter, his horror at what he did while under the Siren's influence, trying to talk that slum lord down before his powers briefly overwhelmed his judgement…
A part of Paige wanted to insist that Cole killing a mortal like that proved he was too dangerous, but the rest of her had to admit that if he was truly as bad as she 'wanted' him to be he could have killed that man in the first place. Even if she didn't like that a man was dead, she could at least respect that Cole had held out that long before giving in to his darker urges, especially when she remembered what it had been like when she was the host of that demon power during the power broker mess…
There was a strange sense of going forwards somehow, as though she was in a car that had just rapidly accelerated- she had a brief flash to that land-speed-record attempt in that film "Rat Race"- before she heard Cole speaking again.
"I'd never get her back if I killed an innocent, especially one that she loved," the former demon said, a simple sense of certainty in his voice that somehow made Paige feel like a jerk for ever doubting his sincerity.
"I can't be good," Cole said, his tone suddenly bitter and his face showing stubble as Paige saw him standing in front of Phoebe as they spoke in the penthouse, "I won't be evil… what do you want from me? Spare me the judgemental crap; you have no idea what I'm going through right now."
"No, I don't, and I don't want to know," Phoebe countered, in a dismissive tone that left Paige feeling briefly shocked. She could appreciate Phoebe being afraid of what Cole could do, but just dismissing him like that…
Are we just creating the problem?
She was suddenly put in mind of some of the more troubled kids she'd seen in her work; how often had she had to help kids get past months or years of being told that they were essentially worthless who decided to just accept it? Cole might be over a century old, but he'd only been inspired to be better the year before Paige met her sisters; didn't he deserve some help to hold on to his new approach, rather than being condemned for making some bad calls out of habit?
Maybe they had a right to be worried about his powers corrupting him, but if they kept acting like he was inevitably going to go evil… did they really want Cole to give in to his powers? She could understand them wanting to be careful after what he'd done as the Source, but if they acted like it was inevitable he'd go evil, when he actually did go evil…
They'd probably feel satisfied that he had proven them right, but they then they'd have to deal with him as an active enemy when Cole was currently at least trying to be better…
Paige's attempt to process what she'd seen was interrupted once again when she felt herself get pulled back, followed by the sense of being pulled 'sideways', which left her squatting in what was apparently the underworld watching Cole crouched in a corner dressed in a tattered suit.
"They have to pay…" he said, breathing heavily as he clenched and unclenched his fists, staring ahead of himself at nothing. "They took her… she's gone…"
Paige nearly jumped in shock as Cole shifted into the red-and-black form of Belthazor, who looked far more satisfied with himself than Cole did.
"Which is why they all deserve this," Belthazor said, as though he was responding to Cole's words. "If the demons took away everything you valued… why shouldn't we take away their lives?"
"Phoebe…" Cole said, as Belthazor reverted back to his human identity. "She would want me to be better… I was trying to help people…"
"And look what that got her," Belthazor countered as he re-took control, his voice particularly bitter as he spoke. "You betrayed everything we ever stood for because of a woman who's no longer here, and the only people who know who you are and don't just want to kill you on sight don't really care about you."
"Piper and Leo-"
"Tolerated you even before Phoebe died, and who's to say they don't just blame you for what happened to her anyway?" Belthazor's tone became more mocking as he continued talking to himself. "If you hadn't suggested Tempus, maybe they could have found another way; you just put them in a position where they saved their secret at the cost of their sister-"
"It wasn't like that; I would never have put Phoebe at risk-!"
"Intent doesn't matter," Belthazor said mockingly. "You're always going to be a demon; it's in your nature to destroy, so we might as well get on with it."
"…No innocents," Cole said, slumping over as he regained control, a resigned tone to his voice as though he knew he wasn't going to get what he wanted out of this but was determined to try anyway. "If we go after the demons… we don't kill the innocent."
"Fair enough," Belthazor responded as he stood up, flexing his shoulders in anticipation. "If we're going to fight, we might as well go after interesting targets anyway."
Even as he shimmered away, for a moment Paige thought she could glimpse Cole's features superimposed over Belthazor's, his mouth open in a silent scream and the faint trace of tears in his eyes…
"Whoa…" Paige-3 said as she stepped back, looking at Paige with a more conflicted expression on her face.
"That was…" Paige shook her head as she looked cautiously back at her other self. "You… you're sure that's real?"
"My visions are… Leo thinks it might be the Whitelighter in me giving me more details like how Whitelighters can sense their charges, so I sometimes see more than just the obvious details," Paige-3 explained. "I don't really understand how I can see stuff like… the Source's powers going into Cole like that… but I can be fairly sure it happened that way."
"And that means…" Paige wished there was something she could sit on beside the floor as she sank down to the ground, her head in her hands. "Oh God… he didn't choose that…"
"To become the Source?" Paige-2 looked inquiringly at her.
"He didn't even know that was an option; the Source's powers basically just… hid in whatever void was left over after Belthazor was vanquished," Paige said, wishing she and her sisters had realised this earlier before things with 'their' Cole became this bad. "I think… after seeing that vision… Cole held the Source back enough that he didn't just kill us all in our sleep, but he couldn't stop the Source actually taking over…"
"And Phoebe couldn't see the difference?" Paige-2 asked.
"I think it's safe to say that the Source could have found some way to hide his true self from Phoebe's visions, and after that she may have just been… maybe she just didn't want to see anything that would make it clear she was wrong?" Paige-3 suggested. "I mean, we've all done that kind of thing outside of magic; remember how we all thought the dad was the abusive one-"
"When we first got our magic before it turned out the mom was the bad one," Paige finished for her other self, nodding in contemplation. "Yeah, that could make sense… Phoebe just had a vision of a guy dying because she was dating him, but that death had nothing to do with demons…"
"So we're clear, you're saying she had the vision because she was dating this guy, right? He didn't die because he was dating her, she just saw the vision because she was close to him?"
"Yeah," Paige nodded, looking contemplatively at her other self. "And you didn't see all that stuff about… your Cole before now?"
"Probably a whole thing where you know your Cole better than I knew mine," Paige-3 clarified. "Like I said, he basically ran off shortly after I met Prue and Piper, so I've never really been able to find him; it's probably only working now because you spent longer with your version of Cole than I did…"
"And none of you realised your Cole wasn't responsible for everything?" Paige-2 looked sceptically between the other two before focusing on Paige herself.
"I think… there was all this stuff with Phoebe being pregnant with the Source's kid and freaking out about how close she was to going evil…" Paige wasn't sure why she hadn't realised any of this before, but the more she spoke the more she realised how horrible she and others had been to Cole. "It wasn't his fault…"
"But it was easier to blame him for everything then think about what else she did?" Paige-2 actually sounded depressed at that idea even before Paige nodded at her. "Oh no… and they're doing so well in my world…"
"They are?" Paige only just registered that Paige-3 seemed just as curious about this idea as she was. It was easy to dismiss Cole's relationship with Phoebe as him having been playing some kind of long game, but if he hadn't done any of that on purpose she was suddenly interested to hear more about what he was like in a reality where he and Phoebe might have a shot.
"Well… obviously it's tough for everyone after Piper's death, but they're all doing their best," Paige-2 explained. "Phoebe's basically taken over P3 by trying to do everything Piper did, but she's having to delegate a lot of the responsibilities to other people; she's basically making sure everyone does things the way Piper would have wanted while letting other people deal with the fine details…"
"And Prue?"
"Still working at 415, but it's like you said," Paige-2 nodded at Paige-3. "She's never really harsh towards me, but she always give the impression that she's holding herself back so that she doesn't have to 'risk' bonding with me and losing me after what happened to Piper."
"Huh," Paige looked between her counterparts. "That's… I mean, Piper and Phoebe took a while to warm up to me, but I think we're getting along OK…"
"Maybe it helps that you coming along meant that everybody had to find their new role in things?" Paige-2 suggested.
"Huh?"
"No, I think I get your point," Paige-3 said with a thoughtful nod. "It's like I said earlier about how people sometimes seem to think I should be more like Phoebe because we're both the youngest; even in your world, Prue can still try to be herself even if it sounds like Phoebe's trying to be Piper…"
"Well, Phoebe says it's more about keeping up Piper's legacy, but yeah, that's probably one way to look at it," Paige-2 nodded at their blonde counterpart.
"So… since Prue's still thinking of herself as the eldest sister who had to keep everyone else safe, she's basically blaming herself for failing to save… whoever died in your worlds?" Paige looked cautiously between the other two. "But in my world…"
"Everyone had to find a new role in the Power of Three to accommodate you, so nobody's able to focus on blaming themselves for losing her," Paige-2 nodded.
"That… makes sense," Paige said, allowing herself a wistful smile. "I mean, one of my first big threats was Piper being possessed by a Fury because she was angry at Prue for leaving her to deal with everything, but she wasn't blaming herself for it…"
"Interesting bit of insight," Paige-3 smiled approvingly at Paige-2. "How did you work that out?"
"I think it's a mix of things," Paige-2 shrugged. "Obviously social work gives me a chance to help a lot of people deal with their personal issues, Phoebe's offered a few pointers from her psychology experience, and I got that info-dump from the Elders-"
"Elders?" Paige and Paige-3 said at once.
"The Elders did… something for you?" Paige-3 looked at Paige-2 with a more critical eye. "Why would they give you any kind of 'info-dump' and not us?"
"They weren't doing it to give me the heads-up on being a witch; it was so I got a better feel for what to do as a Whitelighter-"
"Hold on; you- we- are a Whitelighter?" Paige stared incredulously at her dark-haired self. "As in, you're our Whitelighter?"
"Well, for the Charmed Ones of my world, yeah," Paige-2 nodded.
"So… you're part of the Power of Three and you're pulling double duty as their Whitelighter?" Paige-3 looked at Paige-2 with an expression that Paige could only think of as a look of cautious surprise. "How does that work?"
"It helps that I only have Prue and Phoebe as my charges," Paige-2 observed. "Cole kind of qualifies, but I'm mainly responsible for him because he's sticking with Phoebe-"
"But isn't that a lot of pressure to put on you?" Paige asked. "I mean, I had to quit my job because I was trying to focus on catching up with magic-"
"Well, it's not like anyone wanted me to have to deal with being their Whitelighter on top of being part of the Power of Three, but when Leo vanished-"
"Vanished?" the other two Paiges said simultaneously.
"It's not as bad as you think; Prue thinks Leo was blaming himself for failing to save Piper, so he felt like he… couldn't do the job any more?" Paige-2 said, her tone awkward as she looked between her other selves. "They're not sure if he outright clipped his wings or just decided to leave, but he pretty much vanished shortly after I met the others. They tried to bring in a new Whitelighter, but nobody really managed to click with Prue and Phoebe when they were already dealing with me replacing Piper, so the Elders just decided to cut out the middle-man and give me a big… crash course on being a Whitelighter."
"They can do that?" Paige asked. "Just… give you magical knowledge, I mean?"
"It's not something they do often- apparently they think it's better for most new Whitelighters to find their own way of doing the job- but they felt that it was the best way to keep the Power of Three in play," Paige-2 explained. "It's apparently a variation of this knowledge spell Phoebe used once that gives people specific knowledge where the spell gave it more general knowledge, but it's not a personal gain issue because… well, the Charmed Ones need a Whitelighter, nobody else could really fit in with the dynamic…"
"All that because Leo… didn't want to stick around?" Paige looked at her other self uncertainly. "That's just…"
She paused, reflecting on everything she'd seen her brother-in-law cope with since she joined the family and tried to think about how he might have coped if he had lost his wife instead of his sister-in-law back when she'd first met them. "OK, I suppose it makes sense; after what happened with the Langs…"
"The Langs?"
"Rick and Nathan Lang," Paige explained, glad to have something new she could tell her other selves. "They were friends of Leo's back when he was alive and signed up for the army with him, but the day he died, they got blown up by a bomb, and Leo… well, in my world, he spent a lot of time blaming himself for that, so he probably did the same thing in yours."
"Because his friends got blown up?" Paige-2 looked at her in surprise. "I can get that he'd regret that they died, but I'm pretty sure he didn't do that himself…"
"But he felt like if he'd stayed to help them they wouldn't have been in the medical tent the bomb hit," Paige clarified. "He even felt like he didn't deserve to be a Whitelighter because he failed to save them, and then they came back as ghosts and killed one of his charges… I think he only snapped out of it because he needed to heal Piper, although going to the reunion probably helped."
"Reunion?"
"For the battle of Guadalcanal," Paige explained. "Piper signed him up for the sixtieth reunion basically posing as his own grandson. Leo didn't want to go at first, but Piper talked him into it, and meeting all the people there who'd survived that battle to have families because of what he did… well, it helped him see he'd made the right call."
"Huh," Paige-2 said, smiling slightly at the memory before she shook her head. "Anyway, as well as my download of Whitelighter knowledge, Phoebe and Cole have been working on helping me get the hang of my witch powers."
"Cole's teaching you?" Paige stared at her other self.
"Phoebe makes sure he doesn't go too far because demons obviously push harder than most humans can cope with, but I think they're pushing me because they want me to get the hang of Piper's more… explosive talents earlier than she did."
"Is that likely?" Paige asked. "I mean, my ability to move things isn't really the same as Prue's, and everything I've seen… Leo's never really mentioned any Whitelighter having some kind of aggressive ability…"
"Well, I'm definitely able to affect more things with my freezing ability than Piper could at this kind of point- I can freeze a wider area than she could, that kind of thing- but obviously I can't really show you anything since I can't use my power on either of you…" Paige-2 shrugged. "Cole's speculated that I may start blowing things up faster than she did as I basically break myself up when I orb anywhere, but obviously this isn't the kind of thing you can know in advance."
"Yeah, Piper and Phoebe were really surprised the first time I orbed that candle," Paige recalled.
"Candle?"
"They were checking if I had Prue's powers and it took a while to work out how things had changed," Paige explained, before she looked back at her other self. "So Phoebe and Cole are training you as a witch and you got a big info-dump on being a Whitelighter? Sounds like you're really coming along magic-wise."
"I guess, but… I still wish it wasn't necessary," Paige-2 sighed. "Don't get me wrong, I want to help out, and I'm happy I have all this support to keep up with my job, but it'd be nice to feel like I can learn magic just to… well, to learn magic, I guess."
"I know what you mean," Paige-3 nodded at her. "I feel like I'm scrambling to keep up with what Phoebe could do after they lost so much when she was killed and Cole ran off; nobody's ever said I have to do all that, but it's hard not to feel that way sometimes."
"Tell me about it," Paige nodded. "Piper and Phoebe have never really pressured me to match Prue, but sometimes… well, it's hard not to feel a bit insecure, you know?"
"I guess that's just the way things are," Paige-2 looked around at her other selves with a cautious smile. "No matter how we ended up becoming part of the Power of Three… well, everyone would find it hard to adjust."
"Yeah, even if we somehow met them before anyone died, it would have been tricky," Paige-3 put in. "I think they would have been fine accepting a new sister into the fold, but when magic keeps making a big deal about the prophecy of the Power of Three, would the Elders have been that happy about adding a fourth sister into the mix? And even if the Elders had accepted it, what power would we have got if we'd joined in that kind of situation?"
"…Huh," Paige said, looking at Paige-3 with a thoughtful nod. "Y'know, I have never thought about that…"
"I… wondered, sometimes," Paige-2 shrugged cautiously. "After all, when people keep talking about how Piper was the heart of the family… it's hard not to regret that I never got the chance to meet her myself, even if I couldn't imagine Prue or Phoebe being gone instead… before now."
"Yeah, Piper's… I mean, it's difficult sometimes, but she's really coping well with everything," Paige smiled. "The way she and Leo are preparing for that kid… it's going to be tricky, but they're just so happy about it… Phoebe and I keep trying to prepare for the big home birth while she insists it'll be a hospital…"
"Worried about what the kid will do when she's born?" Paige-2 asked.
"I mean, the kid's already doing some interesting magic even in the womb; she's probably going to do something interesting when she comes out…"
"Which you obviously want to be there to see," Paige-3 nodded at Paige before she turned to look over at Paige-2. "And on that topic… not that this hasn't been a great experience, but how do we get out of this?"
"I… yeah, good point," Paige acknowledged, looking awkwardly around the imitation attic. "I mean… where even are we?"
"Some kind of pocket dimension thing, probably," Paige-3 said.
"How did you think of that?" Paige-2 asked.
"Oh, when I went back in time to see what happened to our parents I got stuck in something similar for a while," Paige-3 explained, a slight edge to her voice that Paige had a feeling only she and Paige-2 would be aware of. "Leo thought it was something to do with my visions interfering with the transition, kind of like how Phoebe was aware of this time she and the others were caught in a time loop set up by this demon trying to kill them…"
"Oh yeah, I think Piper told me a bit about that…" Paige nodded uncertainly for a moment as she recalled the story. It hadn't been an easy thing for Piper and Phoebe to talk about, considering how that particular fight had ended with the death of the guy who was apparently the only person Prue had ever really loved, but it had been important for her to have some ideas of what to expect in dealing with more unconventional demons in her new role in the family. "So how did you get out of that?"
"Leo and Clyde were able to pull me out when they realised what had happened."
"Which isn't going to work here when we don't know how we really got here in the first place and nobody else had any reason to look for us in the first place," Paige shook her head in frustration.
"OK, let's just think about this," Paige-2 said. "If this is some kind of temporal anomaly like what you got stuck in, it was probably caused by someone doing something weird with time… but if this was anything dangerous, you'd have had a vision by now, right?"
"…Probably," Paige-3 nodded, having confirmed that the other Paige was looking at her when she spoke.
"So we're probably safe assuming that this was just a freaky coincidence and all we have to do to get back home is… get out?"
"Yeah, that feels a bit like stating the obvious," Paige shook her head. "I get what you're thinking, but breaking out of a pocket dimension seems like the kind of thing we need a really big spell for-"
"Do we?" Paige-2 grinned over at the others. "I mean, couldn't we just fall back on the Power of Three?"
"The Power of Three?"
"Well, the core of the original spell is how the Power of Three will set you free," Paige-2 clarified, still grinning thoughtfully as she looked between the other two. "We're trapped right now, so what better spell to use to get us out?"
"That… OK, I'm not saying that's a stupid idea, but you get that there's technically only one of us here right now?" Paige-3 pointed out.
"But we all represent a different part of the Power of Three," Paige smiled around at the other two. "Technically we're each a different sister since we've each got one of the three prophesised powers; maybe we could… improvise something? We just need the power for one spell; if we really focus on getting out of here… it could work, right?"
"…Worth a shot," Paige-3 nodded at the other two before she fixed her gaze on Paige-2. "Just do what you can to find Leo when you get back."
"Find Leo?"
"Your world may have lost Piper, but that doesn't mean he deserves to keep blaming himself for what happened," Paige nodded at the other her. "I'm sure you're doing your best as his replacement, but it's not just to give you a break; Leo needs to understand that he deserves to be a Whitelighter no matter how he thinks he screwed up."
"…I will," Paige-2 nodded as she looked between them. "So long as you both try to help Cole."
"Cole?" Paige looked sceptically at her. "You get that… OK, I get that he wasn't totally responsible for that crap with the Source, but he's still got a lot of problems right now…"
"And my one… OK, he's fighting against the demons, but how long is that going to last?" Paige-3 pointed out. "I'm not saying he's going to forgive the Source for killing Phoebe, but if he goes full demon, maybe he'd stop being concerned about why he started doing killing other demons and decide to stage some kind of sick coup-"
"Which is why you have to help him," Paige-2 said firmly. "He's not beyond redemption if you give him a chance; if him being a demon is a problem, just strip his powers."
"I already tried that; his powers just went to another demon-"
"So maybe strip him of some of his powers at a time?" Paige-2 looked over at Paige with a raised eyebrow. "If the problem is demons taking his powers, maybe you can stop other demons becoming a problem by only giving them bits of his powers at a time?"
"So none of these demons get enough of a power boost from that to be that big a threat…" Paige nodded thoughtfully at her. "That… could be tricky, but it might work…"
"And if we can strip Cole of Belthazor… OK, he might not be happy about it, but if we convince him that Phoebe would want him to actually live…"
"That's all I'm asking you," Paige-2 nodded at the other two with a smile. "I'll do what I can to help Leo once I'm back home, so long as you two do your best to give your Coles a chance."
"We will," Paige and Paige-3 said at once.
Paige wasn't sure if that was a promise she could keep, but if it meant giving a version of Leo another chance, she could see about giving Cole another shot. Stripping his powers in stages was a tricky prospect, but it made sense; Barbas had been a problem because he got the full set all at once, but if they could strip some of Cole's powers at a time any other demons would just get a smaller boost… they might be able to leave Cole a few powers so he could help out without leaving him with so many it drove him over the edge…
"And… tell Prue not to blame herself," she said suddenly.
"What?" her other selves said.
"If Prue's having trouble bonding with you because she blames herself for losing… whichever sister you replaced… make it clear that they wouldn't want her to do that," Paige explained. "Piper in particular had some trouble accepting that she was angry at Prue for leaving her, but once she got the chance to vent it… I'm not saying it made everything better, but it helped her accept the new dynamic."
Her other selves still seemed uncertain about the idea, but the way they both nodded assured Paige that they would go along with her request.
"OK, let's do this," Paige said, looking between her other selves as they moved to stand in the middle of the attic, holding out her hands towards them. Once the other Paiges took her hands, all three closed their eyes and began to chant the familiar words of the first spell ever cast by the Charmed Ones.
"The Power of Three will set us free… the Power of Three will set us free… the Power of Three will set us free…
Once the spell had been spoken for the third time, Paige felt the familiar surge of magical power she experienced when casting a particularly big spell with her sisters (although there was definitely something different about this sensation)-
Once the world had stopped spinning around her, Paige cautiously opened her eyes, and sighed in relief to find herself back in that alley once again.
She wasn't sure what about this place had sent her into that strange pocket dimension, or how she had been able to talk with other versions of herself, but she had to admit that it had been one of the most interesting things she'd ever done. She wasn't sure how much of an impact she'd made on those other worlds, and she'd probably never find out- if she didn't know how this had happened in the first place she probably wasn't going to be able to do it again later- but if she knew herself as well as she thought, even in those new circumstances…
I think I'll be all right, Paige thought as she looked up at the sky, wondering if her other selves were looking up at their own stars right now.
She wouldn't deny that it was kind of sad to hear that she'd apparently never quite manage to properly bond with Prue even if the eldest Halliwell had been one of the survivors of whatever led her to her sisters, but at least it sounded like Piper and Phoebe would always be supportive in their own way. Even with Prue, it sounded more like she was just reluctant to open herself up after failing in her perceived role as the eldest sister rather than her actually disliking either of the other Paiges, which was sad but was hopefully something the other hers could work on.
As for her… she'd already tried to regard Cole as an innocent under difficult circumstances; this was just giving that another shot. Trying to sell this idea to Phoebe in particular might be difficult, but she couldn't ignore what she had seen thanks to her other self, and Cole clearly needed help before he did something none of them could properly forgive.
She and her other selves had a lot of interesting challenges to overcome, but if she could sell it all the right way to her sisters, and her other selves could do the same in their worlds… maybe they could still find a way to bring the remaining parts of the family back together.