Part 9 - once again than you for the reviews

"Baby?" He asked softly, "Honey, it's me wake up come on honey you're here with me. Open your eyes Paige, come on…babe, look at me"

The words cut through the pain of the knife, the evil smirk on his face and the cold iciness of his breath, her eyes shot open as she gasped, a sharp intake of breath hoping and praying to still be alive, or well dead if it was actually he near her. She looked at him, the man lent over her, as soon as she saw who it was she could stop panicking; she could relax and calm herself.

Taking slow and steady breaths she pushed her hands threw her damp hair. That was one of the nightmares that he had etched into her mind like that of an engraving on dog tags hung around a solders neck. She felt like a solider sometimes, and he her enemy. But as he had said over and over to her 'all is fair in love and war' and what was more frustrating was that all was not fair. This was a one-sided, biased war they fought, and still they continued to rage a battle, all for the love of the same person, the love of Prue Halliwell.

Truth was like those many years before only up till recently Paige was trying to regain a mothers love lost to him, Prue, her mothers love was burnt in front of her and she held the scars of that battle, the scar strike down her face, the night he pulled that knife was the night this escalated into a war.

Rich noticed Paige was off in a distant world far from the one where he was stood. The one he was stood in where his new found sisters and friends were passed out around his and Paige's living room, the empty cases of beer littered on the floor.

He had found them when coming home from work. Deciding that it looked like they had been through a bad night and due to the alcohol intake were about to have a bad morning, excluding Paige who was used to it by now, he had decided to head off for a shower and leave them. Upon his return to the living room, where all three where lay Piper and Phoebe on the sofa together, and Paige on the arm chair, he found Paige now not in such a peace full sleep, thrashing around and mumbling violently. WELCOME TO HIS WORLD, that which had been created by past events.

Running his own hand threw her hair and then to the side of her face he asked her lovingly, "You know where you are right?" She nodded in response as her breathing returned to normal. "Your okay now, I'm here" Not saying a word Paige lent forward and put her arms tightly around his neck. All last night, all yesterday she had needed this so much, needed his strength. He was the only thing that kept her going.

He felt the need, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, there was silence as she just rested her head into his neck and then he started to rub her back softly, she started to very slowly relax and fall into him still to speak. Rich was worried about her, Paige had never looked so defeated, she just seemed to be blanch – he couldn't get a read off her or anything. "Paige, are you okay?" He asked, she shook her head still yet to speak, then when she did she sounded so upset and broken. "He's taken it all"

"Who?" Rich asked, knowing what Paige was on about but wanting her to form at least one logical sentence. "I've lost her Rich, He's won Prue. I give up…I can't keep fighting!"

Not once, in the time these two had been so close, so open to each other. Even in Paige's more emotional states had she ever fully given in to him, resigned, for fitted, handed any kind of power to Jack but this morning she was. This morning physically as well as mentally, she was too broken, distort and worn out to continue on with this fight. Was this true was Paige really holding up the white flag, giving into him? Was Paige unwilling to continue this endless war in which so much was been lost? Including herself, somewhere along this way Paige had lost so much of herself she was unsure as to who it was behind the outer shell in control.

Physically and emotionally he was wearing her down, ripping her apart and bit by bit totally destroying her.

Rich couldn't and wouldn't let this happen!