DISCLAIMER: The characters of Charmed belong to Aaron Spelling and The WB, I don't own them, but nor am I making any money off using them in this story, so please don't sue!

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Okay, this is pretty angsty, and kind of creepy. It's from Cole's PoV and is set sometime after 'The Good, The Bad, and the Cursed'. I'm a big Phoebe/Cole fan, so this is slanted that way, but I'm warning you right now this is NOT a happy fic. This explores that darker demon side of Cole as well as the softer human side. That's all, enjoy.

Everyone, may they be mortal, demon, witch, whatever, has one special moment in time, a time in their life which always stays perfect and untouched by the years in their memories.

For me it's a time long ago, when for a brief time I knew love.

Yes, even I, Belthazor, knew love. I wasn't supposed to and I didn't certainly plan on it, but it happened anyway.

It started when the Triad called upon me to kill the Charmed Ones, for they knew that if I couldn't do it, then no one could.

I took the job willingly, anticipating the glory. To be the one to kill those sisters three... Well, I'd be a legend among demons, I'd be the most famous and powerful demon who ever lived.

I knew I could do it, after all I was already well on my way to being a legend. I studied the sisters and came up with a plan to kill them.

First, I knew I'd need to get close to them , so I used my buried human side to create a human persona, Cole Turner, the Assistant District Attorney. Cole was smart, handsome, and charming, the perfect cover.

As Cole, I came into contact with the Charmed Ones, and quickly identified the weak link, the youngest sister, Phoebe.

My plan was soon set into motion. It was simple: become involved with Phoebe, get her to trust me, and then use that trust against her to kill her and her sisters.

I intended to do it, until the moment came.

It was perfect, she and her sisters were powerless, the bond between them was broken, and Phoebe had come crying to me. I could have killed her then, maybe I should have. But I didn't, I couldn't.

It was that moment, I realized that my plan had hit one major snag: I had fallen in love with Phoebe Halliwell. So, I sent her home to her sisters, to work out the issue between them and to repair their bond.

I knew that by doing that, I has just said goodbye to my only chance at killing them, but I couldn't help it, I couldn't let her die. I couldn't betray her like that.

So, instead, I betrayed my kind, I even killed the Triad. To this day, I still don't know if I did it for myself, or for her. I guess I'll never know.

It wasn't too long after that Phoebe found out what I was. Her sisters, Prue and Piper, wanted to vanquish me, obviously, and I think a part of Phoebe did too. But she didn't. Just like I couldn't kill her, she couldn't kill me. So, instead, she let me free and told her sisters that she had vanquished me.

I know that I should have ended there, but it didn't. In the end, I realized that I couldn't live without Phoebe: I needed her in my life. So, I went to her and I told her that I'd be willing to do whatever it took to get her back.

She just kept on telling me that it was too late, that evil couldn't love, and that she couldn't trust me because there'd always be a part of me that was evil.

I wasn't then sure if she was right or wrong, though I learnt later that she was right, but I knew I loved her enough to try my hardest at being good. As I told her that day, "I'm not giving up on you."

And I didn't. I kept on pursuing her and after she was injured in a ghost town, I fought my hardest to save her. I even worked with the enemy, her sister Prue, who liked me as much as I liked her.

After that, I convinced Phoebe that I truly loved her and that I would try my hardest to become good, either that or she just realized that life was short and that she didn't want to live without me.

Whatever it was, after that we were together and we were in love. We were even supposed to get married, but we never did. The week before our wedding, two years after we first met, Phoebe was killed in a car accident.

Yes, a car accident of all things. It didn't seem real that one of the Charmed Ones would die just like that, with no super-natural cause. No demon did it, just fate.

But whatever the cause, losing her, the only one I'd ever love, was enough to bring back the demon I had suppressed for so long. Cole Turner died the day we buried Phoebe and that night, so did her sisters.

Yes, I killed her sisters. I still don't know why I did it, anger I guess. Maybe, I didn't think it was fair that they should live when Phoebe died. But I did it and strangely enough, I got the glory I wanted in the first place.

You see, killing the last two Charmed Ones, some of the strongest witches alive even on their own, and not to mention women who had grown to love and trust me just as their sister had, had caused the demons that had branded me a traitor to welcome me back into the fold.

Still, it would have been even better in their eyes if I had destroyed all their line, but I hadn't. For even in my rage I hadn't been able to kill Melinda, Piper's baby daughter, I tried, but I kept on seeing Phoebe's face and knew that the little bit of Cole Turner that was left in me wouldn't let me kill an innocent child.

So, the Warren line continues even now through Piper and her daughter, but it doesn't concern me any more.

The Charmed Ones are long gone, two dead by my hand, and the other... Lost to me forever now.

I don't know if I still love her, I don't even know if I *can* love anymore, but I know that I did love her deeply once and that I'll never feel that way about anyone else ever again.

There, now I've told you about the one time in my life that will never be forgotten, the brief time when I knew what it was to be human and what it was to love and be loved.