ohohhooasfhasdlkfsjkladfjklasdfjkl;jkl;hahaSo I hope you guys were happy with the lightness at the end of the last chapter. I hate having to write depressing stuff like that, but it comes with the job description. I better get a raise for that. You know what my pay is? Reviews of course! So if I get a raise for writing that, then Laur gets a million reviews for the depressing chapter that she wrote. If you haven't read her story, get your ass over there and read it now! And of course if you're going to read that then you have to read Prince Halliwell's… You know what, I'll just give you a list of recommended summer reading materials at the end of this chapter.

Fire Gazer- Thanks!

s.halliwell- Dunno, you'll just have to see…

The-Cheese-Fairy- I did try to make Patience very much like a younger Prue, but as the story progressed I tried to make her more like the present day, less dead Prue. Next week! Oh my goodness that's like forever! Lol! Just kidding.

Prince Halliwell- Well they're not back together quite yet, but they might be soon. Yeah, the vortex is one of the powers the Archers will have, since they can't exactly do a Power of Four thing like their moms.

fanmania- You'll see… Thanks!

It's strange how one little thing can change the course of a day's events in the blink of an eye. Like how just coming back from the future gave our parents the upper hand in the war, or how saving someone from a darklighter arrow can cause your cousin to disappear into thin air. Of course, these are pretty big things, kind of like how telling Kyle that my family and I are witches and other various assorted magical beings.

We hadn't really talked much in the two weeks since I had told him. He hadn't flipped out on me like he had when I cast the Truth Spell. He was still upset that I hadn't told him, but he was calm. He told me that he needed some time to sort things through, so I gave him some space. But the gap was growing bigger and I was starting to think that it might not get closed.

I had resumed my daily activities since the demonic breech on my mind. Uncle Leo healed my arm the rest of the way and I got back to cheerleading, I was doing a lot better in school, I slowed down my training with Aunt Paige to focus on focus and controlling my powers, finding the center of them before working on making them stronger, and I had even apologized to everyone that I had been a bitch to, including Missy Harding.

I found myself one night at Aunt Paige's for our usual training session. She wasn't home from Magic School yet, so I was talking to Percy about the normal things that 16 year old girls talk about… boys.

"So, has Kyle told you how he feels about you being a witch yet?" Percy asked.

"Not yet. He hasn't really said anything at all lately. I think he's a little weirded out by it, but the cat's out of the bag now and I can't do anything about it," I said.

"You don't think he'll tell do you?" she asked. I shook my head.

"I stressed to him the utmost importance of his silence on the issue. I think that's another thing too, he wants to talk to somebody about it, but he can't," I said.

"Well I could talk to him if that's what he needs," Percy offered.

"No, I think this is something he needs to work out on his own. I tried to rush it before and it only got me in trouble. I'm gonna do it the right way this time. I'm gonna take it slow," I said. Percy nodded as blue and white orbs entered the room, forming Aunt Paige.

"Hey, you ready for your lesson?" she asked me.

"Aren't you going to change out of your robes first?" I asked.

"Nah, it keeps me in the teaching state of mind," Paige said. I grinned and walked out to the backyard with her.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow," I called to Percy. Once outside, we began with a little meditation. It helped to get me focused and ready to do more… focusing. I sat on the ground, cross-legged and closed my eyes. I shut out everything, the traffic, the birds, the wind, the sunlight, the ground, the world. We stayed like that for quite some time before we finally got up.

"Okay, now hold out your hand and shoot that tree with a steady stream of water and keep it going for as long as you can," Paige instructed. I did as she said, concentrating only on the water flowing from my hands. I stayed there for about fifteen minutes before Aunt Paige finally stopped me. I hadn't even taken notice to the time, but my body had. I was drained and I almost fell over.

"Whoa, don't pass out on me," Paige said. I blinked several times. "That was really good."

"Thanks," I said. We continued with some less energy consuming training. It was relaxing and it felt good, plus Aunt Paige said that it would pay off when it came time for battle because I would have power and focus.

The other good thing about this meditation and focus stuff was that I always got a good night's sleep when I did it and I had loads of energy the next day. In fact, I woke up before my alarm clock went off the next morning, so I went downstairs and joined my mom and dad for some coffee and breakfast.

"Hey sweetie, you're up early," Mom noted.

"Yeah, I did my 'Energizing Earth' yoga sessions with Aunt Paige last night," I said with a grin, grabbing some coffee.

"That's really funny because Phoebe was always the meditating type," Mom said. I nodded, looking over at my dad who was captivated by some file.

"What's that?" I asked.

"It's my newest case. Bunch of young, perfectly healthy kids found across town. They died for no apparent reason. There's no external or internal wounds, no heart attacks, strokes, previous health problems. They just drop dead," Dad said without even looking up.

"Hm, sounds demonic. I'll keep an eye out at school today, maybe see if anyone knows something," I said. Dad nodded absentmindedly.

"Just be careful. I can remember many days of sticking our noses in demonic situations and getting into a mess. You're a Halliwell. It'll be your luck that you'll run into the demon at school or something and be its next victim," Mom said. I rolled my eyes.

"I'll be fine," I said. That day at school I searched around discretely for little clues as to who might be behind this situation. I didn't find any until after school though. I was going to my car when I saw Chad Pennington and his girlfriend Lacy Tyson heading back into an alley behind the school. I didn't think anything of it. Kyle and I had gone into back alleys plenty of times to… talk. It wasn't until I heard a scream that I became suspicious. I ran back into the alley to find Lacy dead on the ground and Chad nowhere to be seen.

"Dammit!" I yelled, pulling out my cell phone. "Dad, I've got another victim here and I know who the killer is," I said. Five minutes later the San Francisco Police Department was surrounding the school and I was spilling everything I knew to my dad.

"So you're positive it was this kid?" he asked.

"I didn't actually see him do it, but I saw Chad and Lacy go into that alley, heard Lacy scream, and ran over to find her dead and Chad disappeared. It pretty much screams perp to me," I said. Dad nodded.

"You know, if you weren't destined to be some super powerful witch I'd have you on the squad as soon as you graduated," he said with a grin.

"Sorry Dad, but that's your world not mine. I'll see you at home," I said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. I checked up with my mom when I got home to see if she had found a demon that could kill people without leaving any marks.

"Well, I looked through the whole Book of Shadows and all I found was Fashkoff; a demon that can pose as a human to lure his victims into trusting him before stealing their life force away and feeding off of it," she said.

"That explains why there are no marks on the bodies when they're dead. It also explains why Chad Pennington killed his girlfriend today. I'm pretty sure he's the demon," I said.

"Yeah well I just want you to promise me that you won't try to confront him alone. Make sure you have your cousins there with you," Mom said. I smiled.

"I'll be fine," I reassured her for the second time that day. I never got the chance to confront Chad at all though, because he had disappeared completely. He didn't show up at school for the next three days and the police couldn't find him either. It was like he'd never existed at all. Of course we'd all figured that he had just gone back to the Underworld until things died down and it was safe to come back up again. That was until another one of the kids that went to my school turned up dead.

This time it was a senior; a kid by the name of Jason King. Like Lacy, Jason had last been seen with his girlfriend Katie. Afterwards, Katie had disappeared just as Chad had done after killing Lacy. This was starting to get confusing. Things just weren't adding up. All of the victims had been killed by their boyfriend or girlfriend and then the killer just disappeared. Either we were dealing with a whole faction, or we had one sneaky ass demon on our hands. Whatever it was, it was starting to piss me off. I was becoming as obsessed as my dad with the case, so I decided to put all the facts together to see what we had.

"Okay, so the first victim shows up dead, last seen with his girlfriend. He was on the football team, right?" my dad asked. I nodded.

"Yeah, Neil Stewart was the wide receiver," I said.

"Okay and the next victim was a girl, last seen with her boyfriend who was also on the football team," Dad said.

"And Chad Pennington was on the football team as well as the last victim, Jason King," I said, putting two and two together.

"Right, so that's one pattern. We also have the fact that the killings are going in a boy, girl, boy, girl pattern too," Dad said. I gasped.

"I bet it's the guys from the Balboa High team! They're pissed that we beat them and they want to get revenge," I said suddenly. My raised his eyebrow.

"I don't think it's that, honey," he said. I shrugged.

"It was a thought. Hey, do you happen to have Jason's body still in the morgue?" I asked.

"Yeah, he just got autopsied today. Why?" Dad asked.

"Because I want to check something out," I said. A few minutes later my dad and I were examining Jason's body, looking for any clues that could help us.

"There's nothing here," Dad said. He was right, but I wasn't looking at the body on the table. My thought was a little bit deeper.

"For those who want the truth revealed, open hearts and secrets unsealed, show the true face of the victim here, so that San Francisco can end its fear," I said, modifying the Truth Spell to fit my particular needs here. My hunch was right. Jason's body transformed into his girlfriend's. My dad and I gaped at the body on the table, now small and feminine and belonging to Katie Shepfield.

"How the hell did that happen?" my dad asked.

"Fashkoff's got a few tricks up his sleeve. I knew something wasn't right here. Come on, we're gonna go grave digging," I said. About ten minutes later we were in the cemetery, digging up the already buried bodies of the victims.

"I know this may sound weird, but I kind of feel like Buffy digging up these bodies," my dad said. I grinned.

"Buffy doesn't dig up graves, she just kills what comes out of them. Ah, looks like Fashkoff's glamour spell wears off as soon as the bodies are buried," I said. The bodies we had dug up weren't those of the original victims, they were the ones of the suspects.

"So this demon is posing as a boyfriend or girlfriend, killing the victims, and glamouring them into the actual killers to throw us and the police off of their trails and then having the person vanish without a trace," Percy clarified about a half an hour later when we had woken everyone up to tell them the news.

"Exactly! The thing is the people that he's posing as either have to be dead or hiding somewhere because I've known them all my life. They can't have been Fashkoff the whole time because there's one of him and four suspects," I said.

"Wow, this is really confusing, but pretty genius for a stupid ass demon," Mom said. Uncle Cole glared at her. "No offence," she said. Cole nodded.

"Speaking of which, you wouldn't happen to know how to kill him, would you?" Paige asked.

"Not really. I don't think it would be too hard though. Piper should be able to just blow him up like any other demon. You might want a potion just to make sure," Cole said.

"How are we going to find him though? He could be anyone," Parker said.

"We'll just have to watch anybody who's on the football team or who goes out with someone on the football team because that seems to be the link. And if the pattern continues, the next victim is going to look like a girl, but it will actually be a guy," I said. It was all really confusing as my mom had said. There was nothing we could do for that night though. We just had to keep an eye out.

The next day, the four of us were watching everyone who had a boyfriend on the football team like hawks. Everyone was a suspect, even… me. As much as I didn't want to admit it, Kyle could very much be next. While I was pretty sure I wouldn't kill him myself, I had been possessed and ready to before. There was no guarantee that it couldn't happen again. Nothing suspicious had happened though, and as the day came to a close I was beginning to think that maybe I could get a break from seeing my classmates dead.

"Hey Patience, Tiff and I are going to the mall after school. Do you want to come?" Jeff Hollingsworth, a good friend of mine asked on our way out to the car.

"Oh I've got tons of homework. Thanks for the offer though," I said. Jeff nodded and put his arm around his girlfriend Tiff, walking off. It wasn't until a few seconds later that I realized that Jeff was on the football team. I turned and sprinted after him, almost running into Kyle on the way.

"Whoa, where are you going?" he asked.

"To save Jeff, he's the next victim," I panted.

"Victim? What do you mean?" Kyle asked.

"I can't talk right now," I said, running past him and after Jeff. I heard Kyle running behind me. I knew I didn't want him in that kind of danger, but I didn't have time to stop him. I ran around a corner and into an alley to find Jeff's dead body on the ground and Tiff standing over it. I stopped quickly, just staring at it. I was too late. Tiff looked up.

"Stupid witch! I knew you'd catch me in the act sooner or later. That's why I hate witches so much. They're always sticking their noses where they don't belong. I guess I'll have to kill you and the boy," she snarled. Anger and rage fill every nerve of my body and I pulled back and punched her, making her stumble backwards.

"My nose," I said, punching her again, "will always be," another punch, "where people," a kick to the stomach now, "are hurting my friends," I finished, kicking her as hard as I could in the head. "Show me your true face, you bastard!" I shouted. Tiff grinned and stood up, transforming into a large red demon that looked just like the picture in the book.

"You won't be able to kill me on your own, Archer. It takes four to complete the circle," he growled.

"Well four just got a lot smaller today," I said. "The life you've stolen return it now, to the earth where it was made. Your secret has finally been found and from this earth you shall fade," I chanted. Fashkoff threw his head back as all of the life forces that he had stolen exited his body until he withered away to nothing. I stood still for a second before turning to Jeff and falling on my knees at his side, fresh tears in my eyes.

"I'm so, so sorry. You didn't deserve this. You were good. You were so good. I'm sorry," I sobbed. I felt Kyle's arms around me and I buried my head in his shoulder, crying as hard as I could. And just like that, one wrong move cost me a good friend's life. If I had only said yes, if I had only realized sooner, I might have been able to save Jeff's life. But he was gone now, as well as all of the others and there was nothing I could do about it. Killing Fashkoff didn't make it the least bit better. It didn't make up for anything, but at least I knew that no more of my friends would be dying because of him.

As for Kyle, I found out that he had been coming to talk to me, finally. The talk had to be postponed until after the funeral service being held for all of the 'real' victims, at which the missing 'suspects' were also in attendance. They had been found in Fashkoff's hole and exonerated for all convictions. But eventually Kyle and I did get to have our talk.

"So, even though it may not have seemed like it, I was doing a lot of thinking in those very long weeks that we weren't really speaking," Kyle started as we sat atop the hill overlooking the bay.

"And what did you come up with?" I asked anxiously.

"Well, even though it is really freaky that you're some kind of super witch that could drown me if I pissed you off, not to mention the fact that your aunt could blow my ass up anytime she wanted, I can't deny the fact that I love you and I can't stand being without you anymore. It'll take some getting used to, but I think I can handle this. I'd even be willing to learn a thing or two about witches and what you do," Kyle said. I smiled widely and kissed him.

"I'm so glad you're okay with this," I said. Kyle nodded.

"Me too," he said. "You know, it's not your fault that Jeff died. You could have never known that Tiff was the demon, or that the demon looked like Tiff I guess. You know what I mean. What I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't beat yourself up over this like you have been. It wasn't your fault," he said after a minute.

"I know, but I can't help thinking that if I'd have just agreed to go to the mall with him, I could have saved his life. Just one word as simple as 'yes' could have saved him. That kills me more than you'll ever know," I said. Kyle sighed.

"You deal with this a lot, don't you?" he asked. I nodded.

"It's my job, my birthright to deal with this. Doesn't make it any easier though. Each time it just gets harder. It makes me want to quit every time we lose an innocent," I said.

"But then you'd lose way more innocents if you quit," Kyle said.

"Yeah we would. And that's why we keep going. For the greater good. In the end, that's what it's all about. The hope that some day we can live without demons, without little kids having to worry about monsters literally hiding in their closets, without people having to peer around corners of dark alleys to make sure that it's safe. These are the things that we fight for every day," I said.

"Well I'm pretty damn proud of you, because I don't know if I could do what you do, see what you see everyday and still be sane. And one day, because of you and your cousins and your mom and your aunts, the world will be that kind of place that you've been dreaming of," Kyle said.

"Until then, we keep fighting… until we can't fight anymore. We'll die for the cause, my family and I. We'll die fighting. We're the invisible soldiers. We're the snipers on the side of good. No one knows we're there until we strike, or until someone strikes us. And that's how we'll die. It seems pretty hopeless, but I guess it's not. I guess it's… well, for lack of better term: good," I said.

"It is good. Don't ever doubt that," Kyle said.

"I won't, thanks to you. Come on, I have a story I want to read to you. Maybe it'll help the both of us understand a little better exactly what it is we're fighting for," I said. We stood up and walked off, leaving our troubles behind us. Even though we had lost so much on the way, there was still so much to gain. And in the end, that's what we were all fighting for.

Okay, I was going to try to think up another chapter for this, but then I realized that this just played itself out as the perfect last chapter for this story. I know the story was a little short, but I think it gave you the general idea of what exactly Patience was all about and that was my initial goal. I also know that the whole demon thing was very confusing (hell, even my characters were confused about it and they're experts), but I think you guys will be able to figure it out. So, we have one cousin down. Next up is Parker, which I know some of you are excited for. Thanks for all of your support on this story and I'll see you for the next one!

Recommended Reading:

A Life of Magic: The Third Child Prophecy- The-Cheese-Fairy

Simply Charmed and Being Charmed- Prince Halliwell

I Think I Love You, How Am I Supposed to Love You, and Charmed Season 1- Piper xox Leo

Born Like This- .elementbabe.

Charmed and Dangerous and Godsmacked- Jew Witch (Contains same sex relationship between Phoebe and Paige- don't worry, they're not sisters in this- so don't read if you're against that kind of stuff, but it's really good)

Aut