Epilogue

"I can't believe you're leaving"

Angela exclaimed.

"Honestly? Neither can I! It feels only yesterday I arrived"

Bella agreed. The two friends were sitting by the shade at the cafe. Bella had been returned to Forks that morning and the two had immediately met to touch base.

"I'll miss you"

She pouted making Bella laugh

"You mean you'll miss taking that break you had talked about while I was here to handle demons"

She mock accused her bespectacled friend. Angela burst laughing and nodded

"Well, that's true! But I won't give up my break. If I do get in Seattle U as I hoped, Mom and Uncle Seb had agreed to take care of things here"
"I'm glad. You deserve a break... and a chance to catch up with Father time"

Angela was about to make a joke about it when the newest addition to the Cullen family plopped down on the empty chair on their table.

"I'm going to kill them! Will you two try to kill me if I do?"

Angela and Bella exchanged a look. So he had finally cracked. Barely lasted two weeks too. Angela won the bet after all. Bella had put her money down at him cracking much sooner. Instead of handing her the fiver, she motioned the server to get them fresh ice creams and Kol, doing his thing with the dilated eyes and the smooth voice, asked for a double whiskey.

"What did they do?"

Bella asked when the server nodded and walked away. Kol's bright green eyes tightened and his lips stretched over his teeth

"That mother of them tries to baby me and feel me all the bloody time. I'm sure if I cry, she'll stuff a tit in my mouth!"

Angela spat her sweet iced tea as she snorted. Bella agreed readily. Esme was dedicated to her undead adopted children to the extreme and the last time she had seen her at the supermarket, the vampire had gone off the deep end.

"Then you have the big sex crazed/slash/bear hater one. He's alright most of the time but puddles of water have more intellectual depth than him"
"That's Emmett for you"

It was Bella's turn to snort.

"Don't get me started on his self-absorbed wife. Good God I thought Rebekah was self centered but this one takes the cake!"
"Rebecca?"

Angela asked. Kol waved a hand

"My sister. Stupid as a brick, self centered, and makes all blonde jokes sound legit. Good thing she's gorgeous."

Wisely the witches remained quiet, though laughing, filing away information for future use.

"The tiny one keeps having visions that never come true despite her incessant need to boss everyone around claiming she's seen them do what she wants them to do. I pity her boyfriend. If you remove the stick from up his ass and force feed him some humans to get his bowels moving, he could be halfway decent"
"So you're having the time of your life then"

Angela said lightly barely breathing though her laughter. Kol turned to her, suddenly calm now that he had blurted everything he had kept inside.

"You're a good listener, you know that?"
"Thank you"

Her cheeks flamed. Bella's brows shot up.

"Interesting"

She mused quietly but the vampire did hear her.

"What is?"

Bella thought fast to cover her slip.

"You didn't mention Carlisle at all. Hasn't he done something yet to piss you off?"

Kol blinked as he thought

"Actually as soon as you off'ed Edweird, the Brit cooled off. He talks and laughs instead of just studying or avoiding his wife. He leaves me alone and so do I"
"I didn't off Edward. My cousin and a demon friend did. I was a little busy trying not to die"

Bella exclaimed but Kol shrugged

"Whatever. Now tell me. Do you mind if I get rid of them?"
"Personally I don't give a toss"

Bella replied and turned to Angela. Angela's family held the peace in the area for many generations. Now she shook her head

"The vampires keep the shape shifters in check. In turn they keep the vampires in line, so if you want to get rid of those, you will have to take their place. And keep the treaty as is otherwise the wolves will spread out instead of keeping here to themselves"
"Keep... the... what? I'm not a bunny muncher!"

Looking around Bella saw people staring at them and she leaned in

"Shut up! The part I know about the treaty is to let the humans think both vamps and dogs are humans"

Kol rolled his eyes but complied and kept his voice low. If either he or Angela noticed he was too close to her as she, too, leaned in, neither said anything.

"What's your diet?"

Angela asked, placing her chin on her palm.

"Humans of course"
"How many in, say a week?"
"Why buy the cow if I can have the milk for free?"

Angela raised a brow and moved back slightly. Kol's eyes widened

"No! I mean I don't need to kill. I like it, but it's not necessary for me. Simply tasting is enough. Like I did with you"

He pointed to Bella who rolled her eyes.

"Need I remind you that you would have drained me if it wasn't for the supernaturals of our lives?"
"Details.."
"Anyway"

Angela began getting his attention back on her. Bella bit back a smile

"If you can abide to no killing, either accidentally or on purpose, I don't see why you cannot off them and take their place. IF you stay here with the same breaks as the ones they did. Attending school is up to you"

She smirked with a shrug. Kol smiled, took her hand and kissed it.

"Thank you! I'll be picking you at 9"

He downed his drink in one big gulp and ran off, keeping a leisurely human pace. Bella turned to Angela

"I wonder what Ben will make of your date"
"It's not a date. Besides Ben and I broke up. He got a scholarship to go to college in California"

Angela shrugged a shoulder but the blush didn't go away. Bella's smile widened

"Keep telling yourself that"

While Bella and Angela were going through their things to find a dress for Angela and get her ready for the date, Kol was at the Cullen house. He had asked Esme to make him something for dinner. Esme, in full Esme way, made the whole family sit down and have dinner all together. Kol ran to Esme's garden to pick up some greenery for salad and turned the gas on high. Esme's cooking skills were low enough to not know how intense the gas had to be to properly cook the steaks through. A match was lit and the eyesore white house in the middle of the woods went up in flames. At the edge of the woods the La Push pack waited until the flames were no longer purple to douse the fire down before it hurt the forest and wildlife any more than the feeding habits of the Cold Ones already had.

At nine o'clock on the dot, Kol picked up Angela for a date that would be a new beginning for them both. Down the line it would cause her to abandon the idea of taking a break and keep on with her magical practices and remain the age her mate is. Until it was time to meet his witch of a mother anyway.

- - - Family Charms - - -

As for the Charmed ones... That would be a lot straighter forward. Phoebe had indeed left San Fransisco, rightly believing she could work from anywhere as long as she had INTERNET connection. Home was just an orbing potion anyway, right?

Not for long. When she was in Tokyo, she met the new owner of the magazine. She shook his hand and had a vision of them walking down the isle. A vision that had nothing to do with magic, but instead with opening up to love again. A vision that would come true only the week after her powers came back in the form of a little girl with her dad's bright blue eyes and her mom's gift of premonition. Luckily Jason accepted his wife's former witch status a lot easier than his brother-in-law, Dan did.

Dan pretended he didn't know Piper when he first saw her after three years, three weeks after the grand opening of her restaurant. A pretense that lasted only until Jenny, his niece, recognized her and jumped up to hug her. After that the two had talked and slowly but steady. It took them months to explain things including Piper's magic and Dan's intense aversion to it. Neither was upset when Piper's powers never returned...

... Neither also knew that Prue's gift to the newlyweds included a permanent power stripping potion for Piper, (the leering Angel of Destiny had forgotten to mention that their children could and would be magical as proven by Phoebe's little girl), just in case. The future she had been once came true enough. She had a son but she also had a husband who loved her and if she ever saw Leo again, she certainly didn't notice him.

Prue found herself enjoying hanging out with the friendly neighborhood demon. Grams knew what she was talking about when she had said that only the people who know what you're going through can understand you. Cole hadn't died only to come back, but he understood her. They had a strange friendship but it was very real. Prue's work as a sometimes photographer while was running P3 was fulfilling and she still had time to help Darryl out with his cases and sometimes looked the other way when Cole took a demon out to help her.

She was the only sister still unattached but Phoebe was sure it wouldn't stay like that forever, but she kept her opinion to herself. Instead she let her witch sister and demon ex-boyfriend baby-sit her baby knowing the little girl would bring the two together.

Paige's life remained as it was. The Elders had appointed her personal whitelighter to Prue and Bella who were careful and kept low key magical lives, now that the demons were more interesting in killing each other, hoping they'd rise up to become the next Big Bad, allowing her to continue working in the system and earn a promotion to full time social worker. She was the first to arrive at the manor every Saturday night for the family gathering and the last to leave at P3 after making sure her cousins arrived safely at their homes.

Like Prue, she chose to play the field. It wasn't as if she'd ever get older or if she could bring a mortal man to her life, right? So if Darryl's new partner was cute and she liked to spend time with him and he had a killer smile and cared for his parolees with the same vigor she cared about her charges, didn't have to mean anything, right?

Last but not least, Bella was the one who took witchcraft on as a full time career. Prue teased her but the teenager felt like she had been given the keys to the world's biggest and best kept hidden library. There was always something to learn, something to test out and something to go horribly wrong. In the end her cousins organized an intervention when her already pale skin turned translucent from not seeing the sun, and sent her to spend a summer with Angela and Kol in his hometown. It was the same time his older brothers had a spat and the rest of his family had woken up from their eternal slumbers.

A three month trip turned to six months, to a year, to two years in the blink of an eye. At first Bella had been busy standing behind Angela when the latter met her witch-in-law but then she noticed Kol's blue eyed brother. She refused to fall for him, but like Paige and Prue, she liked spending time with Klaus. She only noticed how long she had been gone and how little she used her powers when she received the invitation to Piper's son's wiccaning. Klaus chose to go with her. He said it was because his family drove him up the wall and if he didn't leave them, he'd end up staking them all over again. Bella didn't mind. She knew Cole, her self appointed big brother, would snuff the Original out if he stepped out of line.

Cole had returned to being a DA. His and Phoebe's divorce had been amicable and the two had remained friends. It was awkward at first when she asked him to give her to Jason at her handfasting ceremony. Jason didn't quite appreciate his "from the ex to the future husband" and broke his nose. Prue intervened before Cole could break something Jason needed a lot more, and walked her sister down the isle. In time they mended fences and Cole kept his jokes to himself.

During one Saturday family gathering, the men spent it at an arcade pool house where they played humans (Dan, Jason and Henry) vs non humans (Cole and Klaus) with baby Patrick keeping the score. The girls enjoyed themselves at the P3 where they had fun grilling each other over the men in their lives and laughed over the bad karaoke night and cooing when toddler Patricia tried to sing a tune. When a sudden power cut killed the music they breather a sigh of relief but it killed the lights too.

Bella sent flickers of tiny ice cubes up in the air, Paige whispered an incantation to set them on tiny fires while Prue's flicking of the fingertips sent them spiraling against the ceiling. Phoebe laughed at the display cradling her daughter close while Piper shook her head amused at the antics.

No, their lives weren't the ones they always expected, but none of them cared. They had each other, they were all alive and healthy and they all had things and people they loved. Most of all, they now lived their lives for themselves and not for anyone else. They could and would, face anything fate threw at them. They were Charmed and were family.

The end (for real this time)

A/N: I know a lot of you asked for a sequel and it is in the works. I can't promise you when you'll see it though since the muses have shown up with an another idea that should please those of you who love Jasper. Tune in next week to start reading that, if you wish. Till next time, see you later!