This picks up where the last chapter left off. Enjoy!

Chapter 4

Phoebe's eyes shifted back to the tombstone pensively and she didn't answer for several moments. "I'm sure." She turned back to preparing the spell, then settled back on her knees, breathing in deeply. Without a word, Paige began to do the same.

Phoebe was silent for a while, eyes closed before Paige began to notice her lips moving slightly. She was chanting under her breath. When she finally reached an audible level, it did not help. The spell was in French, or at least what Paige assumed was French from what she could pick out. The language was completely foreign to her.

And yet it seemed to have an undetectable type of rhythm. Paige wasn't sure if the magick was beginning to work or if it was simply the fact that her sister had beat it into her brain by repeating it over and over, but she soon found herself easily whispering along with her, even though she didn't speak a syllable of anything but English. What the words meant, she did not know, but it mattered not. What her mind didn't logically know, the inherent witch in her did.

M'apporter

l'un j'appelle,

Par la mort,

Par n'importe quelle barrière,

m'Apporter ma soeur.

The wind began to blow a shade more forcefully, but Phoebe either did not notice this, or was not surprised by it enough to offer a reaction. Paige ignored it along with her at first, but the low rumble of thunder in the distance frightened her enough to cease her chanting. Phoebe did not even bother to give her a stern look, did not even seem to realize that Paige had stopped and continued on by herself.

Paige was beginning to worry that this spell would push them both over the edge. They were the Charmed Ones, yes, but they were one short-she glanced at the candle setting on the top of Piper's head stone-at least technically. They were out of their depth. And that was saying something.

"Phoebe," she began, watching as the wind tossed both their hair across their faces. Phoebe ignored her and she began to wonder if her sister could even hear her. The wind blew harder. "Phoebe!" Paige shouted.

Phoebe came to an abrupt stop. Her chanting halted, her eyes opened in one snap and roved around, stopping briefly on Paige, then resting on Piper's grave. The flicker of hope left her features and she shook her head. "No," she muttered.

"Phoebe," Paige reached out a tentative hand toward her older sister.

"No," Phoebe said again, shaking her head and neither stopping, nor acknowledging Paige. "No, no, no, no, no!" She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them like a scared little girl. Paige had no idea what had happened, or how Phoebe knew the disappointing outcome so suddenly, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that the spell had failed.

She scooted over and wrapped an arm around Phoebe's shoulder. Phoebe didn't move, continuing to shake with silent tears. Eventually she lifted her head and stared with bleary eyes at her half-sister. "Nothing…" She shook her head again in disbelief. "I couldn't…I couldn't have poured any more power into it. And still…nothing. I felt her so strongly for those few minutes and then…she was gone." She looked back up at Paige and let out a choked sob. "I let her go, Paige. I couldn't hold on."

Paige's brow furrowed in concern and she pulled Phoebe against her, allowing her to rest her head on her shoulder. "Shh," she soothed. "It wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done."

"That just…" Phoebe sniffled. "That just means I can't do it. I'm too weak. And now…" another round of tears spilled from her eyes, "now there's no one left to take care of me," she managed.

"You have me," Paige reminded her, offering a small smile. "And you have Cole and Leo. We're gonna be fine."

"Leo," Phoebe echoed, contemplatively. "Leo can't know Paige," she insisted, her gaze turning somewhat desperate. "He can't know what we did. What I did. He'll just go all Whitelighter on me and I really can't deal with that right now."

Paige nodded her compliance. "I promised before that I wouldn't tell him."

Phoebe nodded as well, sending one last dejected and defeated look at the headstone sitting in front of them.

"We should go," Paige suggested, her desire to be home suddenly stronger than ever. She was looking forward to getting Phoebe away from the cemetery and to locking herself in her room, a place where she could cry herself to sleep. Being the strong one was harder than it looked.

For so long, a year at least, she had watched Phoebe be the rock for Piper after Prue's death. Neither usually mentioned their lost eldest sister very frequently, but Paige knew they both had thought of her a great deal, and it was obvious that Phoebe and their new shared destiny with Paige were the reasons Piper kept going. And now…well, Paige just hoped the one sister she had left did not give up due to the absence of the others.

Sighing, Paige rose to her feet, tugging Phoebe up along with her. She gathered up the supplies for the spell, emptying out the soil in the chalice and snatching up the half-melted candles, placing them all back in the sack in which Phoebe had toted them. Then she looped her arm through Phoebe's and began to lead her away.

"He can't know," Phoebe whispered, half to herself, but Paige nodded anyway, still walking briskly toward the entrance gates.

By the time they had reached Phoebe's PT cruiser in the parking lot, a shrill scream pierced the air, the source somewhere from behind them, back in the midst of the headstones.

Neither heard it.

* * * * *

"Piper?" Leo began, drawing back from her in order to be able to stare into her eyes. A sort of assurance that she was real, indeed lying beside him. She leaned in again, capturing his lip with her own, ignoring his questioning gaze. He did not protest, allowing the kiss.

He knew better than to waste time.

Every night was like this. She would come. She would stay with him for a while. And then she would leave. Leo had never discovered whether or not she was truly there. He had seen enough magick in his life to know that it was possible, and he didn't doubt that she would find a way to him, even when faced with such a barrier as death itself. He knew it would not stop him from going to her, and now he wanted to convince himself that the vice-versa was true as well.

Every night. Every night, it would go exactly like this. But she would eventually pull away. She would eventually go; he knew it. And he dreaded that moment almost more than he looked forward to her coming.

He knew she would soon abandon him again. She would look at him, like she was doing now and say evenly:

"Time to wake up."

And he would wake as he did now. Alone in their bedroom, in the middle of the night. He would reach over to her side of the bed and find it empty, not even an indention of her head in the pillow to offer him the comfort of the possibility that she was in the bathroom, or sipping coffee in the kitchen.

She was gone. Gone for good and he would never see her again until he died as well. And for not the first time since he had met her, he cursed his immortality.

He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself against the sudden pain and fell back into his own pillow, holding back the tears he never let the others see. Don't cry, he instructed himself.

A Whitelighter wouldn't cry. He needed to be strong for the girls, his family, his charges. He would not give in, he would not abandon all hope as Phoebe seemed to have. He would pull himself and them out of this grief if it killed him. And if it ended up doing so…well, there were worse things.

Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry…

* * * * *

Okay you guys, minus mush, that was a quality post. Grief/mourning is hard to write, so give me feedback!!! (oh, and don't bother translating the spell, it's really stupid in English, lol-just made it up)