A/N: Okay this is the very first story that I have written to be viewed. I would appreciate CONSTRUCTIVE criticism only. NO flames, I understand if you don't like it, but that isn't going to help me get better. Okay now that we have cleared that up, onward to the story details. This is the first story in my planned series of What If...? stories.

I cannot, and will not, claim Charmed as my own. All Charmed characters and such concepts belong to Aaron Spelling and Constance M. Burge. I do, however, claim my original characters and much of the concept for this story.

This story is begins about a month before Phoebe's return from New York.

What if...? Funny how those two words always seem to find a way to rule our lives. What if this happens? What if that hadn't happened? What if we did this? What if I did that? What if...? It is a question that plagues us all at one point in time or another. For someone like Patience Virtue Ward, it is a gift as well as a curse. And she's about to find out just what happens when her questions are answered.

Chapter 1: Patience Virtue Ward

San Diego, California

February 27, 2012

10:45 P.M.

Patience Virtue Ward

Patience Virtue Ward, a twenty-four year old college student, a daughter, a sister, a fiance, and a slightly obsessive personality as a whole. This didn't make her a bad person, in fact, sometimes this very obsessiveness is what helped her to get through many of her classes at the local community college. Obsessive over what, one might ask. Well, many things really, it just sort of depends on the day, or whatever it is that catches her attention at the moment. She has been obsessed mostly with three things in her life; Motherhood, Magic, and The Force. Yes, Patience is a Star Wars nerd, but more than that she had a deep and abiding belief in, and respect for, magic of any and all types. So it was really no surprise to those who knew and loved her, that she became so obsessed with the television show Charmed.

Patience thought back on all eight seasons of her favorite show and looked down at a blank page in her journal. She'd caught herself wondering lately. Wondering, what if she could have been a part of that continuum? What if she could have traded her current life, as good as it was, for a life as a Charmed One? She stared hard at the blank first page of this new journal and lifted her pen, then brought it down onto the page.

What if I woke up one morning and found that I was a child of Patty Halliwell and Victor Bennett? A fifth Halliwell child. I realize that this is likely the most impossible thing that I could ever think up. Heh, what the hell though, right? Why can't I wish for a life that I can't have in my reality? I've said it many times, I would do just about anything to have a family like the Halliwells. To have sisters like the Charmed Ones, that would be great. I've always wanted older sisters. My life has never been the greatest, but I've always striven to live it to the fullest with as little complaint as possible. To have siblings like them, sisters who will stand beside me through thick and thin. Hell I'd give my right arm for a family that did that for me in real life. Anyway, I think this question is worth asking, if only to get my mind thinking of another story. I haven't written anything in awhile.

She looked down at what she'd written, rolled her brown eyes, and wondered if she was beginning to lose her mind. It was true, her life had never been the greatest. She'd been bounced around from home to home, slipped through the cracks of the system, had lost connection with her family. Her mainstay in her life at the moment was her fiance, Tremaine Latham. The Florida native was a wonderful man, and he seemed to understand her on a level that she could never have imagined. Like her, he believed in the magic of the world, and he didn't shun her or push her away for the way she obsessed over things.

I wonder if Tre would be represented in the Charmed Universe, if I were to ever wake up and find myself living that sort of life. Patience thought with a smile. Would he be a normal mortal? I've always seen him as a guardian angel of sorts. Kinda neurotic at times, over protective, but ultimately the type of guy that I would want looking after me. She watched the pen in her hand trace through the air as she played with it.

The brown eyed woman sighed and looked back down at her journal. Still, though, the question rang in her mind. What if I woke up one morning and I was a fifth child of Patty Halliwell? She felt almost compelled to write a story for that question. However, having never experienced that type of a life, Patience could barely imagine how she would walk that path. That type of magic didn't really exist in her world. Whether for good or bad, Patience was also on the fence about it. She believed that most magic was wonderful, beautiful, and in some ways necessary for the real world to carry on as it always had. But there was also that magic that wasn't so good for the world. That kind of magic was what always kept her from imagining something more.

Patience, always had a problem imagining the bad side of things. As an eternal optimist, she'd always found a way to find that silver lining. She couldn't get her mind to wrap around the idea that someone or something could truly be as evil as The Source. It was one of the things she could always understand about Cole, that eternal struggle. Sure he was half demon, but he still had a human side, that was capable of so much good.

"Gah, look at me, I'm sitting here thinking about something that isn't real. Get a grip, Pay." She told herself with a laugh.

It was one of Patience's more endearing qualities, her ability to laugh at herself, no matter how serious she was. It wasn't that she couldn't be serious, the reality was that she could be. She often was quite serious about what was going on around her, and what she was doing. Patience had that drive to succeed, but she also knew how to relax, to step back and look at things objectively and then laugh at all the stupid things she was doing. She'd always had that quality. It was something that Tremaine had told her he loved about her, and it had become something that she really liked about herself.

She looked at the alarm clock on her bedside table and sighed. Already a quarter to midnight. She thought to herself. She looked down at her journal page again and brought her pen back down to paper.

I know that it is likely that I will wake up tomorrow morning and look at this entry and laugh at myself, but for the sake of humoring myself, and to satisfy my own urge to give in to the magic I know exists in some universe out there, I part tonight with a wish, and a spell.

In this night and in this hour

I call upon the ancient power

So that I might finally know

The love of true family

Please make it so

Yeah, not my best spell work, but I'm no Phoebe Halliwell. Time for bed.

With that the young woman smiled and put her pen down. She pushed a strand of soft brown hair out of her eyes and looked over her work. With a smile she read aloud her first ever spell. "In this night and in this hour, I call upon the ancient power, So that I might finally know, The love of true family, Please make it so."

Without so much as another glance at her clock, which at that exact moment had turned its numbers to that of 12:00, Patience stood up and closed her journal, leaving it on her desk. She switched off her light and crawled into bed with a tired yawn. It wasn't long before she was soundly sleeping, falling asleep far faster than she normally did, but she could have cared less. Nights like this were way too few and far between. Who was she to complain how quickly she fell into that blissful warm velvet blanket called sleep.

The moment that sleep took her, there was a flash of lightning across the sky and the clouds rolled away from in front of the moon to reveal its fullness, before once again covering it and letting loose a torrent of rain to patter against the earth below.

A/N: Like I said, first story to publish on Fan fiction. Please review, but please do not flame. I will try to update again this week. Hope you enjoyed this first chapter in the Patience Virtue Ward Saga.