Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed.

Findings

Curiosity

"If one of these entries would just trigger a memory, I'd at least have a lead on who took Christy," Billie Jenkins mumbled to herself as she flipped through the pages of the Halliwell Book of Shadows. She tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear and leaned forward over the large book, holding it tighter in frustration. Since she'd begun to remember more clearly the night her big sister was kidnapped years earlier, she had been diligently studying her witch mentors, the Charmed Ones, ancestral book of magic. As of yet, she hadn't come across anything useful.

"No, no, not this one," she mumbled, leafing through the book. She read page after page of spells, potions, information on good magical creations, demon biographies- their powers, skills, weaknesses, how to vanquish them, what their normal motive was- and nothing related to the taking of a young witch from her home almost fifteen years prior. "Another useless... wait, what?"

Billie had been about to turn past another of the seemingly endless demon pages when several words caught her eye. She flattened the page and read the passage more carefully. "... human form... fine wine, walks on the beach... is ticklish... what the heck?"

She sat upright staring curiously at the page. Why had someone written stuff like that about a demon? She glanced to page beside it. A fierce red demon with black markings across his face stared back at her. The writing under the picture said the demon was to be feared for his strength, powers, and mind. He was a demon of fortune with no known vanquish, though Billie noticed that a vanquish must have been discovered after the entry was written, if the potion ingredients on the back of the page were any indication. She looked back at the words of human qualities about what she guessed was a disguise the demon Belthazor had used. "This looks like Phoebe's writing," Billie mused, thinking of the middle sister of the three witches who were teaching her the craft.

The front door shut loudly and Billie jumped at the noise.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Paige Matthews asked coming into the living room and seeing the charge she had as a Whitelighter reclining on the couch. The youngest Charmed witch took a seat across from Billie.

"I was trying to find the demon who took Christy-"

"Any luck?" Paige interrupted.

"No," Billie said a bit sadly. "But, I did find this weird entry in the Book? What is this?"

Paige looked at the pages as Billie held the Book up in front of her. She frowned. "That is evil incarnate."

Billie looked at her inquiringly.

"You really don't want to know, Billie."

"Yes, I do."

"It's complicated and a long story."

"I've got time."

"Billie..."

"Paige, you can't expect me to forget that I read all these un-demonic qualities about a demon. And, unless I'm wrong, that's Phoebe's handwriting, and it seems as if she had feelings for this demon."

Paige sighed and moved to the couch next to Billie, getting a better look of the Book. She noticed the old tape on a couple blank spaces of the page. "I wonder when she took the pictures out," she commented. Looking at Billie's expectant face, and figuring that the girl could use a break from searching fruitlessly for her sister, Paige decided to answer Billie's request.

"Fine, I'll try to shorten it though. Cause, really, I don't feel like thinking of Cole."

"I take it you don't like him."

"Of course I don't like demons. They're evil, especially that one."

"That's not what Phoebe made it sound like. Phoebe did write this, right?"

Paige moved the Book to her own lap and closed it. She rested her arms on the cover. "Yeah, Phoebe wrote this. It was back before I met her though," Paige said, referring to the time before she was reunited with her birth family, years after she'd been given up for adoption as an infant. "Almost five years ago, I guess it was."

"She wrote it five years ago? So, she had to have met this demon before that. Start at the beginning, please. I'm really interested to know what made Phoebe say stuff like this about an evil guy."

"I wasn't here for the beginning, though maybe if I had been I could've saved Phoebe the pain. Anyway, I'll have to just give you the brief overview of that year that I received. OK, let's see. Cole, Belthazor, was a demon sent to kill Piper, Phoebe, and our older sister, Prue, the one who was killed. This was two years after they got their powers. Cole decided that in order to succeed in killing the charmed Ones where every other demon had failed, he had to get close to them. He posed as an A.D.A. and started dating Phoebe. Unfortunately, they fell in love. He decided not to kill my sisters and when he was found out to be a demon, Phoebe decided not to vanquish him. She lied to Piper and Prue for months about it, saying she had killed him. Eventually, she told them she's let Cole go. Then she convinced them to give him a chance, saying he'd changed and was good. He fought with them against demons for a while. Apparently a few months later, though, some other demon put a spell on him and he killed a witch. Phoebe dumped him. I think that's when she wrote all this stuff. But, when she found out about the spell, my love struck sister forgave him."

"Then, Prue died and I came. He was a part of the family package. Phoebe loved him and it seemed Piper and Leo thought of him as a brother. I knew he was a demon from the beginning, but I didn't see his demon form for several months. He was half-human and stayed in his human form most of the time. When I finally saw what he could become and realized the extent of evil he'd done in the past, that's when I really started to become wary of him. I mean the demon of the century, the old Source of All Evil's right hand man, does not change sides because of a witch. This mortal woman came after him, then, for revenge because he'd killed her fiancé years before. His demon side was stripped and we thought he was human. I guess he was for a time, but then he became the leader of the Underworld, betrayed us, and took Phoebe as his Queen once they were married. She got pregnant with his evil spawn and it influenced her. We were able to vanquish him but he found a way back. He collected all these powers of other vanquished demons when he was in the Demonic Wasteland, became pretty much invincible, and resurrected himself. He tried to win Phoebe back, but she'd, thankfully, fallen out of love with and divorced him. He went crazy because of her rejection and tried to organize the Underworld again. Targeted me with his evil schemes, cause he didn't want to hurt Phoebe still, and I guess he liked piper better. We were only able to vanquish him the second time because he changed reality and made himself Belthazor again. No longer invincible and he went poof, finally. Haven't heard from him in about three years now."

Billie was silent for a moment before she spoke. "Wow."

"Yeah, so now you know the story and, if you don't mind, I really need to go think of something else before his memory pollutes my mind."

"Uh, sure."

Paige left the room and Billie stared at the Book now resting beside her.

"Do you want some lunch? I'm feeding Wyatt and Chris now."

Billie glanced up as Piper entered the room. "No thanks, I'm not really hungry."

"OK. You still looking for information on your sister?" Piper questioned with a nod to the Book.

"Oh, I was earlier. But, just now, Paige actually was telling me about Belthazor."

"Why?"

"I found what Phoebe wrote about him in here and got curious."

"Let me guess," Piper came further into the room, "She said he was evil."

"Pretty much, though I got a few more details than that."

"Well, for all the evil he did before he met Phoebe, for all the mistakes he made after, and despite how annoying he was, Cole had a good heart. Falling in love brought out his humanity and the good in him .He fought with us, he saved us more times than I can count. I'd even go so far as to say that the love he and Phoebe shared was on par with Leo and me. I guess Paige told you about the Source thing. But, she probably didn't tell you he was possessed by the Source, he didn't want it. And, the only reason he was overtaken was because he saved us, again, and as a human. And the stuff when he came back to life," Piper shrugged. "He was so in love with Phoebe that when she told him she didn't love him anymore that he lost it. And, Phoebe, reacting to her pain of their relationship falling apart, constantly told him he was evil. So, despite his trying to be good, he started to believe Phoebe and actually did some evil things when he was insane. But, he wasn't evil. I love my sister, Billie, but she ignored Cole's pain after the Source. She was his link to good and love, and without her faith, he just fell apart. Paige and Leo and I didn't help matters, either. He'd been family and we tossed him aside-"

"You don't seem to hate him, like Paige does," Billie cut her off.

"It's been years. I've had plenty of time to think about what happened back then and to realize that it wasn't all Cole's fault, that we made mistakes, too. Paige never really accepted him and then he targeted her the most, so I guess she's choosing to stay mad at him forever and brand him as evil. But, read what Phoebe wrote. It's obvious she loved him. And she couldn't love someone who really was pure evil."

"I kind of got that," Billie said. "It's sad though. I never knew Phoebe had a love like that and for it to have fallen apart on her; that's awful."

"It is," agreed Piper. "And, don't tell Phoebe I said this, but I think she's still in denial about what she felt for him. After she divorced Cole, she convinced herself she didn't love him anymore, but I'm not so sure that's true. Unfortunately, it's too late. I really do wish my sisters could hold on to the kind of happiness I have, though."

As Piper went back to the kitchen to tend to her children, Billie once more glanced down at the Book. She hauled it into her arms and moved toward the attic of Halliwell manor.