This is a new account, and also just a story I wrote up because I was tired of studying for finals. It's a one-shot, but who knows I might use it to begin a story some day. Review if you want. Enjoy anyway!

God bless! *Philippians 4:3-7*

Endless Evil; Hopeless Good

"Paige, I don't know how you can look me in the eye and say this doesn't matter!" Piper fumed. She glared at her younger sister and dared her to respond.

Paige didn't falter under her eldest sister's anger. She was used to it. From the first moment she'd met Piper she had experienced the witch's unrivaled wrath, but in the recent months, the sting of her eldest sister's distance had suddenly flared again. Not just to her, but to anyone in the Halliwell family. She had become a shell after her daughter Melinda was nearly killed in an attack on the Manor. She walked around in a constant daze only returning for outbursts of anger like the one she was having now.

There were glimpses of hope when she heard one of her children laugh or when for an instant, she forgot herself and smiled at her unknowing husband. Yet even those moments were rare now, and when they were over, she only seemed confused as if happiness was something she could no longer understand. No one knew how to bring her out of her darkness and despite their best efforts it seemed as if she was slipping further and further in every day.

"Piper," Paige breathed in exasperation at having to have this conversation again. "I never said it didn't matter, but we can't let this control our lives. We can't keep making the same mistakes. The more we fight magic, the more it will come for us. How many times do we have to learn that?"

"My daughter was almost killed." Piper hissed. Now tears were rimming her eyes. The anger towards her sister had all but been replaced with a sadness and confusion only a mother can feel towards her children. "She..." Piper stammered trying to catch her breath. Her hands gripped the countertop for support as her demeanor instantly shifted from aggressive to desperate.

Paige watched her sister crumble before her eyes and knew the besiege was over for now. For now, they weren't anything but sisters, one of whom was fighting an internal battle for her heart. Paige crossed the small space of the kitchen that separated them and enveloped her sister in a deep embrace. She felt the elder witch shaking against her chest.

Piper dug her head into Paige's neck and relished in the warmth that washed over her skin. She wished desperately it would penetrate her heart but the void she felt there remained still and unfeeling. "Paige," Piper murmured pulling her head slightly away from her sister until she could look her in the eyes, "I'm so sorry...I am just so scared. I thought I had lost her. I thought..."

Paige smiled understandingly, happy that her sister was finally talking. "I know. If it had been Ari or Allie or H.J.," Paige shuddered at the thought of losing one of her children, "But you didn't lose her," she continued, "she is safe. She-"

Piper shook her head and finally left the embrace of her sister. She turned her back to Paige to face the window that overlooked their small garden. She gripped the counter again for support. She bowed her head and after another pause she sighed. "She will never be safe, not while we are witches. Not while everything we are, everything she was born into keeps her in danger...they will never be safe. Not while we are fighting this war...this war that we can never win. This war that only takes innocent lives...this endless war..."

If Paige were able to see Piper's eyes, she knew her sister would be looking far away into another world where they had all found themselves in their journey as witches, sisters, daughters, and moms. She was seeing the victories of evil. She was seeing desperation. She was losing hope.

Paige also turned her back to push the kitchen door slightly open. She paused a moment before leaving however, and she didn't see the tuft of blonde hair sprinting away from the door. She didn't hear the two sets of small footsteps running back up the stairs. She would never know that her two nephews had heard the deadly exchange of hopelessness between sisters. "You and Phoebe taught me to fight for the greater good, and yet..." she waited a long moment to collect her thoughts, "you also taught me that family comes first. I think perhaps, in times like this we have to decide which we will fight for hardest." Paige walked out of the kitchen and was just at the large Victorian doors that led out to the street when the concussion of a blast sent her flying through them and out to the street. Her ears rang for endless seconds, and it felt like a different world when she was finally able to wobble to her feet. She turned around and again it seemed like a lifetime before she could make sense of the destruction in front of her.

The front doors of the Halliwell Manor were splintered and through the opening Paige could see into the interior of the house. She stumbled forward, almost falling more than once until she could see where the stairwell and kitchen wall should be yet instead stood nothing. There was nothing but a blackened charred hole where the kitchen had once stood...where she and her sister had stood seconds before...where Piper had still been standing when she left...

The last thing Paige heard before the blackness overtook her and sent her to her knees was the sound of her own voice, almost unrecognizable and raised in anguish. It was the sound of her soul crying out for her sister, now gone, now taken by a hopeless battle.