Fic: Comes Out of Darkness, Morn (14/37)
Title: Comes Out of Darkness, Morn
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Summary: Pax's disappearance shattered Paige. Losing Prue, three years later, reopens old wounds that she thought she'd managed to close off, forever. But, through tragedy comes a sliver of light, and discovering that she's a witch is only the beginning...
*****
It took another half hour for Paige to be able to leave the hospital. First she had to convince Ava to release her, something the older woman was not happy with. It took a lot of fast talking on Paige's part, but she finally got Ava to sign the necessary papers, and then she was free to go.
She and Henry were just headed out to his car when his cell phone rang, and he dropped back to take the call. Paige watched a frustrated look cross his face, and she knew that it was bad news.
"One of Greg Conroy's kids never checked in," he said, flipping the phone shut and shoving it in his pocket. "He wants my help to track him down."
"Go," Paige said, automatically, but Henry hesitated.
"What about-" he started, but Paige cut him off.
"Go," she repeated, emphatically. "Henry, all I'm going to do is talk to those women. Nothing more; I promise."
"Just keep it to talking, okay?" Henry said, after a moment. "No chasing after any demons."
"No chasing demons," Paige promised, her hand in the air in a mock salute. "Go bring that kid back safely, okay? Be careful."
"You need to be careful, yourself," Henry told her. "Do you want me to drop you off?"
Paige shook her head. "I'll orb," she replied, getting a surprised look from Henry.
"You can pinpoint addresses, now?" he asked. "What? Did you get the GPS upgrade, or something?"
"Apparently the GPS comes standard," Paige teased him. "I'll see you later, huh?"
"Let me know if you need anything," Henry said, and then she watched him walk to his car.
After Henry had driven away, she walked around to the back of the hospital. She ducked into the empty smoking shelter, grateful for the late hour, and the shadows that hid her presence. She closed her eyes to concentrate, focusing on Prue's old house on Prescott Street, and she orbed away - not noticing Ava stepping out of the back entrance, an unlit cigarette in her hand. Ava stared at the spot where Paige had disappeared, and then without a word, she dropped the cigarette and ground it into the asphalt beneath her sneaker before she went back into the hospital.
Paige materialized into the shadows that surrounded the old Victorian manor, jogging up the steps to the front porch. She knocked on the front door, freezing when the still-open door swung gently open under her hand. She looked quickly around to see a dark gray car parked on the side of the street across from the house.
A sixth sense in the back of her mind was practically screaming at her 'Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!' and the last time she'd felt like that Henry had almost gotten shot by a parolee. After that, she was determined not to ignore the sense whispering in her mind.
She called up a small, crackling ball of electricity into the palm of her hand as she eased through the open door, looking carefully around the empty foyer. Everything looked okay as she slowly ventured further into the house, but she wasn't ready to let her guard down, yet.
The sound of voices from somewhere above her startled her into spinning around, and she let out a sigh of relief as Prue's sisters came into view, seemingly whole and unharmed. She dropped her hand to her side, letting the electricity extinguish.
"Okay, let's get one thing straight," Piper was saying, a testy note in her voice as she and Phoebe descended the stairs. "I am only doing this to save her. I am not remotely interested in reconstituting-" Her voice trailed off when she saw Paige standing in the middle of the living room, a small frown forming on her face. "The Charmed Ones," she finished, flatly, as she and Phoebe stepped off the last stair.
"Your front door was open," Paige explained. "I, um, I need to talk to the two of you."
"So do we," Phoebe said, latching onto Paige's arm and pulling her further into the room. "We were just coming to look for you."
"You were?" Paige said, slowly.
She figured that they wanted to talk to her about what Phoebe had seen up on the roof. Which was good, since Paige had a few questions of her own.
"Yep," Phoebe chirped. "Come on in. Welcome. I'm Phoebe, and this is my sister, Piper."
"Hey," Paige said, with a small nod. "I'm Paige," she introduced herself.
"Imagine that, another P." Phoebe was almost gushing, and Paige shot the hyper woman a disbelieving look.
"It's nice to meet you," Piper said. Clearly, she was the sane one of the bunch.
Piper held her hand out, and Paige clasped it in a quick handshake. Then, she jumped as the whole house started to shake, and a brilliant blue light cascaded from the chandelier to surround her, Piper, and Phoebe. When the light faded and the tremors had stopped, Paige stared at the other women in amazement.
"What the hell was that?" she demanded.
"I think that means that you're supposed to be here," a male voice said from nearby, and Paige looked over, doing a double take when she recognized the man.
"Aren't you my handyman?" she asked, a skeptical note in her voice, and the man gave her a small smile in response.
A second later, she heard the sound of howling wind that was becoming all-too familiar in her life. She whirled around to see a gust of wind coming in through the open door, and then she, Piper, and Phoebe were thrown off their feet. The wind materialized into the demon that had attacked her on the hospital roof.
'He's still bleeding from when I hit him,' Paige thought, grimly, as she pushed herself to her feet as the demon advanced on them.
Piper had gotten to her feet, first, and she stepped forward, gesturing emphatically at the demon. A shimmer of energy left her hands to strike the demon, making him stagger backward, and it gave Paige time to ready a small bolt of electricity in her hand that she threw at the demon. Neither attack seemed to faze the demon, and Paige instinctively drew in closer to the other women, unconsciously reaching out and gripping their hands.
The demon staggered, suddenly, as the handyman jumped onto his back, wrapping an arm around the demon's throat. The demon threw him off, slamming him painfully into the floor, and the man standing beside him took advantage of the demon's momentary distraction to tackle him and sent him crashing to the ground.
"Go!" the second man shouted, his voice hoarse as he wrestled with the demon. "Get upstairs!"
Paige felt a tug on her hand as Phoebe started pulling her and Piper toward the stairs, and they bolted up two flights, into an attic.
"What are we doing?" Paige demanded, as the women dragged her over to an old book sitting in front of the picture window. "We should be fighting that thing."
"We are," Piper said, brusquely.
"Say this spell with us," Phoebe said, as she flipped frantically through the pages of the book, and Paige stared at her in disbelief.
"Spell?" she echoed. "What are you guys, witches?"
"And so are you, we hope," Phoebe muttered.
"Well," Piper said, as the demon's howling filled the attic, "we're about to find out."
The demon materialized in front of them, and Piper and Phoebe were squeezing her hands in a painful grip. Paige looked down at the book in front of them, reciting the words in near-unison with the other women.
"Evil wind that blows,
That which forms below.
No longer may you dwell.
Death takes you with this spell."
The demon let out an eerie scream that had the hair on the back of Paige's neck standing up straight. Then, he exploded in a shower of light, and Paige let out the breath that she hadn't even been aware that she was holding.
"That wasn't enough," Phoebe said, into the deafening silence that had fallen over the attic. "Shax was just the messenger. We've got to get the Source."
"The Source of what?" Paige demanded, getting a sheepish look from Piper.
"Of all evil," the older woman said, slowly, and Paige staggered backward until her knees hit the window seat, sinking down onto the cushion.
"What have I gotten myself into?" she murmured, softly. The pounding in her head was back, and she lifted a hand to the stitches in her forehead, pulling away fingers spotted with blood. She silently cursed under her breath; Ava and Henry were going to kill her.
"Are you okay?" Phoebe asked, a concerned note in her voice, and Paige nodded, flapping her hand weakly at the other woman.
"I'm fine," she reassured her. "I just need a minute, you know?"
"You're bleeding," Piper said, her voice sharp. "Come on, we can patch you up downstairs."
She and Phoebe led the way back down the stairs, each of them hooking an arm around hers, like they thought she was going to bolt, otherwise. Paige wondered if Phoebe had already forgotten that she didn't need her legs to be able to move around. Orbing away from them would be child's play, compared to orbing back onto that rooftop, but she decided not to use that avenue, yet. She still wanted to talk to the women, even if it looked like they'd just taken out Prue's killer, together.
Down in the living room, the two men were hunched over on the couch. Her handyman was holding his hand over the other man's face, and Paige watched in amazement as a shallow cut on the man's cheek closed in a line of golden light.
"This is Leo Wyatt," Piper was saying, gesturing to the first man. "My husband."
"And Darryl Morris," Phoebe added, with a nod at the other man. "He's a friend of ours. And completely crazy," she went on, pointedly. "What were you thinking, tackling Shax like that?"
"It distracted him, didn't it?" Darryl asked, rhetorically. "Listen, I've got to get back to the station, see if Cole brought Cortez back from Africa, yet."
"Cortez?" Paige echoed, as Darryl left. "As in Marco Cortez, the Inspector who's investigating Prue's murder?"
"How do you know about that?" Piper asked, suspiciously.
"He talked to me at the hospital after I was attacked by Shax," Paige explained. "I just talked to him less than an hour ago. What's he doing in Africa?"
"Timbuktu, actually," Phoebe spoke up, timidly. When Paige shot her an incredulous look, she added, "It rhymed with undo."
Paige just shook her head in exasperation, not voicing the dozens of protests that immediately sprang to mind.
"So, we need to talk to you about something," Phoebe went on, as the three of them joined Leo in the living room.
"So you said," Paige replied, taking a seat in an armchair that faced the couch that Piper, Phoebe, and Leo were occupying. With the way they were positioned, she felt a little bit like she was facing some kind of inquisition.
Piper and Phoebe were exchanging looks, engaged in some kind of silent communication. Leo finally broke the silence by leaning over the coffee table that separated them, his hand held out.
"Let me take care of that, for you," he said, gesturing at her head wound, and Paige felt a coolness wash over her as he healed the gash on her forehead.
"Thanks," she said, gratefully. "I got that the first time the demon - Shax, you said his name was? - attacked me."
She sat back in the rather comfy chair, crossing one leg over the other. She was in no hurry to go anywhere, and she was willing to wait as long as it took to get answers out of Piper and Phoebe. They sat in silence for a few more seconds, and then Piper was the first one to speak.
"What do you know about your birth parents?" she asked, and Paige raised an eyebrow at the direct - and unusual - question.
"How'd you know I was adopted?" she countered, but when no answer was forthcoming, she shrugged. After everything that had happened, tonight, she didn't see that she had to hide anything from the women. "They were angels," she answered, after a moment. "At least, that's what Sister Agnes told me."
"Sister Agnes?" Phoebe echoed.
"The nun that my birth parents left me with when I was born," Paige told them. "She said that they appeared in bright, white lights and begged her to find a safe home for me. That I was in some kind of danger. I seem to have inherited their white-light teleporting ability-"
"Orbing," Leo interrupted her, and Paige spared a moment to be amused by the face that Henry had apparently christened her power by its rightful name.
"Orbing," she agreed. "But, that's all I know about them. Sister Agnes never got any names, or anything."
"Patricia and Samuel," Phoebe said, softly, and Paige shot her a confused look.
"Excuse me?" she asked.
"Their names were Patricia Halliwell and Samuel Wilder," Phoebe went on, just as quietly, and Paige felt her heart stop in her chest.
"How - how do you know that?" she demanded, hoarsely. "Patricia Halliwell is-"
"Our mother," Piper finished for her, when she trailed off. "Your mother," she added, gently, and Paige sucked in a sharp breath.
"You're my sisters," she said, numbly. "Prue was - all this time, and we never knew?" she breathed, quietly. "How?"
"Mom and Sam weren't supposed to be together," Phoebe said, having heard her last comment. "And, having a baby - they gave you up to protect you."
Paige stared at the women - her sisters - in shock for several seconds, completely at a loss for words. A million thoughts were whirling through her mind, and she couldn't seem to pin down a single one.
"I - I have to go," she finally forced out, pushing herself to her feet. Piper and Phoebe followed suit, a panicked look crossing the latter's face.
"What?" she demanded. "Why?"
"My whole life was just turned upside down in about three seconds," Paige said, dryly. "I need a little time to process this. And I think you guys do, too," she added, getting the feeling that they had only learned about their relationship with her shortly before she had. They couldn't have known, before; Prue never would have kept it a secret from her.
"Paige," Piper started, but Paige cut her off with an upraised hand.
"I need to think about this," she said, emphatically. "I'll be in touch, okay?"
Then, focusing on anywhere that wasn't there, she orbed away from the shocked faces of her sisters.
Continued here
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Summary: Pax's disappearance shattered Paige. Losing Prue, three years later, reopens old wounds that she thought she'd managed to close off, forever. But, through tragedy comes a sliver of light, and discovering that she's a witch is only the beginning...
*****
It took another half hour for Paige to be able to leave the hospital. First she had to convince Ava to release her, something the older woman was not happy with. It took a lot of fast talking on Paige's part, but she finally got Ava to sign the necessary papers, and then she was free to go.
She and Henry were just headed out to his car when his cell phone rang, and he dropped back to take the call. Paige watched a frustrated look cross his face, and she knew that it was bad news.
"One of Greg Conroy's kids never checked in," he said, flipping the phone shut and shoving it in his pocket. "He wants my help to track him down."
"Go," Paige said, automatically, but Henry hesitated.
"What about-" he started, but Paige cut him off.
"Go," she repeated, emphatically. "Henry, all I'm going to do is talk to those women. Nothing more; I promise."
"Just keep it to talking, okay?" Henry said, after a moment. "No chasing after any demons."
"No chasing demons," Paige promised, her hand in the air in a mock salute. "Go bring that kid back safely, okay? Be careful."
"You need to be careful, yourself," Henry told her. "Do you want me to drop you off?"
Paige shook her head. "I'll orb," she replied, getting a surprised look from Henry.
"You can pinpoint addresses, now?" he asked. "What? Did you get the GPS upgrade, or something?"
"Apparently the GPS comes standard," Paige teased him. "I'll see you later, huh?"
"Let me know if you need anything," Henry said, and then she watched him walk to his car.
After Henry had driven away, she walked around to the back of the hospital. She ducked into the empty smoking shelter, grateful for the late hour, and the shadows that hid her presence. She closed her eyes to concentrate, focusing on Prue's old house on Prescott Street, and she orbed away - not noticing Ava stepping out of the back entrance, an unlit cigarette in her hand. Ava stared at the spot where Paige had disappeared, and then without a word, she dropped the cigarette and ground it into the asphalt beneath her sneaker before she went back into the hospital.
Paige materialized into the shadows that surrounded the old Victorian manor, jogging up the steps to the front porch. She knocked on the front door, freezing when the still-open door swung gently open under her hand. She looked quickly around to see a dark gray car parked on the side of the street across from the house.
A sixth sense in the back of her mind was practically screaming at her 'Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!' and the last time she'd felt like that Henry had almost gotten shot by a parolee. After that, she was determined not to ignore the sense whispering in her mind.
She called up a small, crackling ball of electricity into the palm of her hand as she eased through the open door, looking carefully around the empty foyer. Everything looked okay as she slowly ventured further into the house, but she wasn't ready to let her guard down, yet.
The sound of voices from somewhere above her startled her into spinning around, and she let out a sigh of relief as Prue's sisters came into view, seemingly whole and unharmed. She dropped her hand to her side, letting the electricity extinguish.
"Okay, let's get one thing straight," Piper was saying, a testy note in her voice as she and Phoebe descended the stairs. "I am only doing this to save her. I am not remotely interested in reconstituting-" Her voice trailed off when she saw Paige standing in the middle of the living room, a small frown forming on her face. "The Charmed Ones," she finished, flatly, as she and Phoebe stepped off the last stair.
"Your front door was open," Paige explained. "I, um, I need to talk to the two of you."
"So do we," Phoebe said, latching onto Paige's arm and pulling her further into the room. "We were just coming to look for you."
"You were?" Paige said, slowly.
She figured that they wanted to talk to her about what Phoebe had seen up on the roof. Which was good, since Paige had a few questions of her own.
"Yep," Phoebe chirped. "Come on in. Welcome. I'm Phoebe, and this is my sister, Piper."
"Hey," Paige said, with a small nod. "I'm Paige," she introduced herself.
"Imagine that, another P." Phoebe was almost gushing, and Paige shot the hyper woman a disbelieving look.
"It's nice to meet you," Piper said. Clearly, she was the sane one of the bunch.
Piper held her hand out, and Paige clasped it in a quick handshake. Then, she jumped as the whole house started to shake, and a brilliant blue light cascaded from the chandelier to surround her, Piper, and Phoebe. When the light faded and the tremors had stopped, Paige stared at the other women in amazement.
"What the hell was that?" she demanded.
"I think that means that you're supposed to be here," a male voice said from nearby, and Paige looked over, doing a double take when she recognized the man.
"Aren't you my handyman?" she asked, a skeptical note in her voice, and the man gave her a small smile in response.
A second later, she heard the sound of howling wind that was becoming all-too familiar in her life. She whirled around to see a gust of wind coming in through the open door, and then she, Piper, and Phoebe were thrown off their feet. The wind materialized into the demon that had attacked her on the hospital roof.
'He's still bleeding from when I hit him,' Paige thought, grimly, as she pushed herself to her feet as the demon advanced on them.
Piper had gotten to her feet, first, and she stepped forward, gesturing emphatically at the demon. A shimmer of energy left her hands to strike the demon, making him stagger backward, and it gave Paige time to ready a small bolt of electricity in her hand that she threw at the demon. Neither attack seemed to faze the demon, and Paige instinctively drew in closer to the other women, unconsciously reaching out and gripping their hands.
The demon staggered, suddenly, as the handyman jumped onto his back, wrapping an arm around the demon's throat. The demon threw him off, slamming him painfully into the floor, and the man standing beside him took advantage of the demon's momentary distraction to tackle him and sent him crashing to the ground.
"Go!" the second man shouted, his voice hoarse as he wrestled with the demon. "Get upstairs!"
Paige felt a tug on her hand as Phoebe started pulling her and Piper toward the stairs, and they bolted up two flights, into an attic.
"What are we doing?" Paige demanded, as the women dragged her over to an old book sitting in front of the picture window. "We should be fighting that thing."
"We are," Piper said, brusquely.
"Say this spell with us," Phoebe said, as she flipped frantically through the pages of the book, and Paige stared at her in disbelief.
"Spell?" she echoed. "What are you guys, witches?"
"And so are you, we hope," Phoebe muttered.
"Well," Piper said, as the demon's howling filled the attic, "we're about to find out."
The demon materialized in front of them, and Piper and Phoebe were squeezing her hands in a painful grip. Paige looked down at the book in front of them, reciting the words in near-unison with the other women.
"Evil wind that blows,
That which forms below.
No longer may you dwell.
Death takes you with this spell."
The demon let out an eerie scream that had the hair on the back of Paige's neck standing up straight. Then, he exploded in a shower of light, and Paige let out the breath that she hadn't even been aware that she was holding.
"That wasn't enough," Phoebe said, into the deafening silence that had fallen over the attic. "Shax was just the messenger. We've got to get the Source."
"The Source of what?" Paige demanded, getting a sheepish look from Piper.
"Of all evil," the older woman said, slowly, and Paige staggered backward until her knees hit the window seat, sinking down onto the cushion.
"What have I gotten myself into?" she murmured, softly. The pounding in her head was back, and she lifted a hand to the stitches in her forehead, pulling away fingers spotted with blood. She silently cursed under her breath; Ava and Henry were going to kill her.
"Are you okay?" Phoebe asked, a concerned note in her voice, and Paige nodded, flapping her hand weakly at the other woman.
"I'm fine," she reassured her. "I just need a minute, you know?"
"You're bleeding," Piper said, her voice sharp. "Come on, we can patch you up downstairs."
She and Phoebe led the way back down the stairs, each of them hooking an arm around hers, like they thought she was going to bolt, otherwise. Paige wondered if Phoebe had already forgotten that she didn't need her legs to be able to move around. Orbing away from them would be child's play, compared to orbing back onto that rooftop, but she decided not to use that avenue, yet. She still wanted to talk to the women, even if it looked like they'd just taken out Prue's killer, together.
Down in the living room, the two men were hunched over on the couch. Her handyman was holding his hand over the other man's face, and Paige watched in amazement as a shallow cut on the man's cheek closed in a line of golden light.
"This is Leo Wyatt," Piper was saying, gesturing to the first man. "My husband."
"And Darryl Morris," Phoebe added, with a nod at the other man. "He's a friend of ours. And completely crazy," she went on, pointedly. "What were you thinking, tackling Shax like that?"
"It distracted him, didn't it?" Darryl asked, rhetorically. "Listen, I've got to get back to the station, see if Cole brought Cortez back from Africa, yet."
"Cortez?" Paige echoed, as Darryl left. "As in Marco Cortez, the Inspector who's investigating Prue's murder?"
"How do you know about that?" Piper asked, suspiciously.
"He talked to me at the hospital after I was attacked by Shax," Paige explained. "I just talked to him less than an hour ago. What's he doing in Africa?"
"Timbuktu, actually," Phoebe spoke up, timidly. When Paige shot her an incredulous look, she added, "It rhymed with undo."
Paige just shook her head in exasperation, not voicing the dozens of protests that immediately sprang to mind.
"So, we need to talk to you about something," Phoebe went on, as the three of them joined Leo in the living room.
"So you said," Paige replied, taking a seat in an armchair that faced the couch that Piper, Phoebe, and Leo were occupying. With the way they were positioned, she felt a little bit like she was facing some kind of inquisition.
Piper and Phoebe were exchanging looks, engaged in some kind of silent communication. Leo finally broke the silence by leaning over the coffee table that separated them, his hand held out.
"Let me take care of that, for you," he said, gesturing at her head wound, and Paige felt a coolness wash over her as he healed the gash on her forehead.
"Thanks," she said, gratefully. "I got that the first time the demon - Shax, you said his name was? - attacked me."
She sat back in the rather comfy chair, crossing one leg over the other. She was in no hurry to go anywhere, and she was willing to wait as long as it took to get answers out of Piper and Phoebe. They sat in silence for a few more seconds, and then Piper was the first one to speak.
"What do you know about your birth parents?" she asked, and Paige raised an eyebrow at the direct - and unusual - question.
"How'd you know I was adopted?" she countered, but when no answer was forthcoming, she shrugged. After everything that had happened, tonight, she didn't see that she had to hide anything from the women. "They were angels," she answered, after a moment. "At least, that's what Sister Agnes told me."
"Sister Agnes?" Phoebe echoed.
"The nun that my birth parents left me with when I was born," Paige told them. "She said that they appeared in bright, white lights and begged her to find a safe home for me. That I was in some kind of danger. I seem to have inherited their white-light teleporting ability-"
"Orbing," Leo interrupted her, and Paige spared a moment to be amused by the face that Henry had apparently christened her power by its rightful name.
"Orbing," she agreed. "But, that's all I know about them. Sister Agnes never got any names, or anything."
"Patricia and Samuel," Phoebe said, softly, and Paige shot her a confused look.
"Excuse me?" she asked.
"Their names were Patricia Halliwell and Samuel Wilder," Phoebe went on, just as quietly, and Paige felt her heart stop in her chest.
"How - how do you know that?" she demanded, hoarsely. "Patricia Halliwell is-"
"Our mother," Piper finished for her, when she trailed off. "Your mother," she added, gently, and Paige sucked in a sharp breath.
"You're my sisters," she said, numbly. "Prue was - all this time, and we never knew?" she breathed, quietly. "How?"
"Mom and Sam weren't supposed to be together," Phoebe said, having heard her last comment. "And, having a baby - they gave you up to protect you."
Paige stared at the women - her sisters - in shock for several seconds, completely at a loss for words. A million thoughts were whirling through her mind, and she couldn't seem to pin down a single one.
"I - I have to go," she finally forced out, pushing herself to her feet. Piper and Phoebe followed suit, a panicked look crossing the latter's face.
"What?" she demanded. "Why?"
"My whole life was just turned upside down in about three seconds," Paige said, dryly. "I need a little time to process this. And I think you guys do, too," she added, getting the feeling that they had only learned about their relationship with her shortly before she had. They couldn't have known, before; Prue never would have kept it a secret from her.
"Paige," Piper started, but Paige cut her off with an upraised hand.
"I need to think about this," she said, emphatically. "I'll be in touch, okay?"
Then, focusing on anywhere that wasn't there, she orbed away from the shocked faces of her sisters.
Continued here