Fic: Comes Out of Darkness, Morn (16/37)
Mar. 20th, 2012 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sara_wolfTitle: 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...
*****
Nearly an hour after she'd gotten to work, Paige found herself buried under a mountain of paperwork. She'd only made social worker a few months earlier, and sometimes it felt like Cowan had forgotten at times that she was no longer his assistant. When her phone rang a few seconds later, Paige was almost grateful for the distraction.
"Hello?" she said, absently, as she snatched up the handset.
"Paige, thank God." The woman on the other end of the line sounded frantic, and Paige bolted upright at her tone.
"Sister Agnes?" she asked. "Sister, what's wrong?"
"You told me to call you if I saw Emily Mayes," Sister Agnes said, and Paige jerked out her chair, snagging her coat from where she'd thrown it over the back of the seat.
"She's there right now?" she asked, as she shoved her arms into the coat. "Sister, can you keep Emily there until I get there?"
"I'll do my best," Sister Agnes promised, and Paige thanked her, quickly, before she hung up the phone.
She crossed the office to Cowan's office, knocking lightly on the door and poking her head into the office.
"Emily Mayes just resurfaced," she said, and something like hope flared up in the older man's eyes. "She's at the church over on Oak."
"Go get her," Cowan said, and Paige dashed out of the office without another word.
In the car, she dialed Henry's cell phone, tapping her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as she waited for him to pick up.
"Hey, it's me," she said, when she heard his distant greeting on the other end of the line. "Can you meet me at the church on Oak Street? I need your help. Emily's back."
"Paige?" came the confused reply, and she sighed.
"Who else?" she asked, not expecting an answer. "Church on Oak. Yes or no?"
"I'll be there as soon as I can," Henry told her, and Paige hung up without another word.
She didn't bother to keep track of the traffic laws she broke on the way to the church. She just drove, and prayed that she got there before Emily took off, again.
Emily Mayes had been her first real case as a social worker. Sixteen, pregnant, alone – Paige had been more than able to empathize with the girl. Emily had been kicked out of her house by her religiously-fanatic father, she'd been trapped in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend, and she'd had no one to turn to.
She'd turned up at Social Services one afternoon, and Paige had been given her case. She'd worked on gaining her trust, for nearly three weeks, had put the girl up in her own apartment. And then one day, while she'd been at work, Emily's boyfriend had tracked her down and beaten her bloody – and Emily had disappeared.
Paige hadn't known whether the girl was alive or dead until this moment; all she'd had to go on from her apartment was a broken front door and a bloody knife in the kitchen. She'd looked for Emily, everywhere, had begged everyone she knew to keep their eyes out for her, but as the months had gone on, she'd all but given up hope that Emily had survived.
Sister Agnes had just given her back that hope.
She threw her car into park outside the church, giving an involuntary shiver at the way the gargoyles seemed to be staring down at her.
'The gargoyles are not alive,' she told herself, firmly, quashing the childhood fear that had prevented her from entering the church when she was nine. 'They are not going to swoop down and eat you.'
Squaring her shoulders, Paige marched past the gargoyles and into the church. She paused inside the door to let her eyes adjust to the light, and then she headed for the office at the back of the church. Inside the office, she found Sister Agnes, and a teenage girl hunched over in her chair, her long, red hair hanging in front of her face, hiding her from view.
"Emily?" Paige ventured, and the girl jerked her head up, staring at Paige like she'd seen a ghost.
"I'm not going back," she snapped, angrily, glaring at Paige, who shot Sister Agnes a baffled look.
"Back where, Em?" she asked, confused.
"You're here to take me back to my father," Emily snarled, her delicate features twisting into a snarl. "I'm not going back."
"I'm not taking you back to your father," Paige hastened to reassure the girl. "Besides, even if I tried, you'd just run away again, wouldn't you?"
Emily nodded, emphatically, and Paige sighed as she took the seat that Sister Agnes indicated, across from the teenager.
"I'm just here to talk, Em," she said, quietly.
"I don't need you," Emily snapped, her voice wavering despite her words. "I can take care of myself, and my baby."
"I don't doubt it," Paige told her. "But, maybe there are people out there who want to take care of you."
"Like who?" Emily muttered, flinching away from Paige when she reached out to take her hand.
"Like me," Paige said, softly. "I care about you, Em. I want to know that you're safe."
"I was supposed to be safe at your apartment," Emily sniped at her, and Paige could feel her heart sink in her chest.
"Emily-"
"You promised me that I would be safe!" the girl raged at her, her hands clenched into fists as she jumped up from her chair. "You swore that no one would be able to find me. But, Troy did, and he hurt me-"
"I'm sorry," Paige whispered, catching the girl into a fierce hug. "Emily, I am so, so sorry."
Emily just shook her head, shoving Paige away and bolting out of the office. Paige sighed, following behind her, and then she froze in shock when she realized that Emily was standing completely still in the middle of the aisle – so still she wasn't even breathing.
"Emily?" Paige demanded, rushing to the girl's side, and then she sighed when she caught sight of Piper and Phoebe standing a short distance away. "What did you do to her?" she demanded, angrily.
"What makes you think we did anything?" Piper asked, but Paige just leveled a glare at her, crossing her arms over her chest.
"She froze them," Phoebe spoke up, when it became clear that neither Paige nor Piper was willing to break their silent standoff.
'Them?' Paige thought, and then she turned around to see Sister Agnes standing in the doorway to the office, one foot raised to take the next step.
"You froze a nun?" Paige yelled, whirling back around her face the women.
"Yeah, lucky I didn't blow them up," Piper said, with a shrug. "My powers have been kind of off, lately."
"Blow them up?" Paige echoed. There was a faint roaring in her ears, the usual indicator that she was getting pissed beyond belief. But, unlike usual, she didn't feel the rush of her power filling her, threatening to explode from within her.
Which was good, because, with the way she felt at that moment, she ran the very real risk of doing her new sisters some very real damage.
"Undo it," she ordered, brusquely, gesturing at Emily and Sister Agnes. "Whatever you did to freeze them, you need to undo it."
"We need to talk to you," Phoebe protested, and Paige shot her a glare.
"I don't care," she said, quietly. "Take this freeze off them. Now."
"They're fine," Piper said, dismissively, and Paige breathed slowly, in and out, for several seconds, to keep from yelling at the older woman. "Look, Paige, you're in danger."
"The only thing I'm in danger of is losing my temper," Paige informed them.
"This is serious," Piper snapped at her. "There's a demon after you. The Source of All Evil. He wants your power; all of our powers."
"I don't-" Paige snapped, but Phoebe cut her off.
"The Source is the one who sent Shax after us," Phoebe interrupted her, softly. "He's the reason that Prue is dead."
'Damn it,' Paige thought, furiously, tears springing unbidden to her eyes. She dashed them away with the back of her hand. 'Damn it, Prue. Damn you for leaving me, like this.'
"What do you want?" she asked, only a hint of a tremor in her voice betraying the emotion that threatened to escape.
"We just wanted to make sure that you're okay," Phoebe said.
"I'm fine," Paige told her, and figured it had to have been genetic, the way that neither Piper or Phoebe looked like they believed the words, just like Prue had never believed her. Either that, or she really was that bad of a liar. "Now, would you please unfreeze Emily and Sister Agnes?"
"The Source is going to come after you," Piper warned her, and Paige held up a hand, summoning a bit of electricity to her fingers. She frowned when it took more effort than it usually did, but after a few seconds, sparks were jumping between her fingers.
"I'm not exactly helpless," she pointed out, closing her fingers into a fist and letting the sparks die.
"You, um," Phoebe spoke up, "you have Prue's power, too. At least, if you really are a Charmed One, and we never could have vanquished Shax if you weren't."
"What power is that?" Paige asked, curious despite herself.
"Telekinesis," Piper told her. "She could move things with her mind. You should be able to do the same."
"How?" Paige asked.
"Well," Phoebe said, looking around, "you just pick something, like that candle over there, and you wave your hand at it."
Feeling extremely foolish, Paige did as instructed, but nothing happened.
"She used to squint her eyes, too," Piper added, helpfully, and if the situation had been different, Paige would have been sure that the older women were trying to pull some kind of prank on her.
But, she obligingly squinted in the direction of the aforementioned candle, flapping her hand impatiently at it when it stubbornly refused to move.
"Maybe it didn't work," she said, with a sigh. "Maybe I don't have Prue's power, if I can't even move that candle-"
Then, her jaw dropped open in shock as the candle was surrounded by orbs, disappearing from the holder it had been sitting on. A second later, it rematerialized in the palm of her hand, solid and heavy. Phoebe grinned at her, taking the candle from her and blowing out the flame.
"Maybe the Whitelighter in her makes it work differently?" she suggested to Piper, like Paige wasn't standing right there.
"Half breed," Piper muttered, and Paige glared at her.
"All right, fun's over," she started, but then the rest of what she was going to say was cut off by a horrendous screaming sound. "What the hell is that?" she yelped, her hands flying up to cover her ears.
"Gargoyles," Phoebe whispered, and Paige stared at her in disbelief because, of course. Of course, in a world where witches and demons were real, the freaking gargoyles had to be alive.
"Oh my god," a voice gasped from behind her, and Paige whirled around to see Emily, unfrozen and staring at the still-frozen Sister Agnes with a look of sheer terror in her eyes.
"Emily," Paige started, but the girl backed away from her when she tried to get closer, her hands held up protectively in front of her chest.
"What is this?" she demanded, a hysterical note in her voice. "What's going on?"
"Emily, I can explain," Paige tried, but the girl wasn't listening to her.
She stumbled backwards, away from Paige, and fell heavily against the edge of a pew. Picking herself up before Paige could get there, she turned on her heel and bolted down the aisle, heading for the doors. The doors slammed open before she even got there, but Emily just kept running, bumping into a startled Henry and nearly knocking him back down the steps in her haste to get away.
"Paige, what's going on?" Henry asked, his face screwed up in a grimace at the sound of the unearthly screaming that filled the air.
"That's Emily," Paige said, gesturing in the direction the girl had gone in, and cursing when she didn't see her. "I have to find her, she's in trouble."
"All right," Henry said, grabbing her hand and pulling her down the steps. "Let's go; you drive."
Paige nodded, leading the way to her car and ignoring the distant shouts of her sisters, behind her. Source of All Evil be damned; Emily needed her help, and she wasn't going to let some demon stand in her way.
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...
*****
Nearly an hour after she'd gotten to work, Paige found herself buried under a mountain of paperwork. She'd only made social worker a few months earlier, and sometimes it felt like Cowan had forgotten at times that she was no longer his assistant. When her phone rang a few seconds later, Paige was almost grateful for the distraction.
"Hello?" she said, absently, as she snatched up the handset.
"Paige, thank God." The woman on the other end of the line sounded frantic, and Paige bolted upright at her tone.
"Sister Agnes?" she asked. "Sister, what's wrong?"
"You told me to call you if I saw Emily Mayes," Sister Agnes said, and Paige jerked out her chair, snagging her coat from where she'd thrown it over the back of the seat.
"She's there right now?" she asked, as she shoved her arms into the coat. "Sister, can you keep Emily there until I get there?"
"I'll do my best," Sister Agnes promised, and Paige thanked her, quickly, before she hung up the phone.
She crossed the office to Cowan's office, knocking lightly on the door and poking her head into the office.
"Emily Mayes just resurfaced," she said, and something like hope flared up in the older man's eyes. "She's at the church over on Oak."
"Go get her," Cowan said, and Paige dashed out of the office without another word.
In the car, she dialed Henry's cell phone, tapping her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as she waited for him to pick up.
"Hey, it's me," she said, when she heard his distant greeting on the other end of the line. "Can you meet me at the church on Oak Street? I need your help. Emily's back."
"Paige?" came the confused reply, and she sighed.
"Who else?" she asked, not expecting an answer. "Church on Oak. Yes or no?"
"I'll be there as soon as I can," Henry told her, and Paige hung up without another word.
She didn't bother to keep track of the traffic laws she broke on the way to the church. She just drove, and prayed that she got there before Emily took off, again.
Emily Mayes had been her first real case as a social worker. Sixteen, pregnant, alone – Paige had been more than able to empathize with the girl. Emily had been kicked out of her house by her religiously-fanatic father, she'd been trapped in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend, and she'd had no one to turn to.
She'd turned up at Social Services one afternoon, and Paige had been given her case. She'd worked on gaining her trust, for nearly three weeks, had put the girl up in her own apartment. And then one day, while she'd been at work, Emily's boyfriend had tracked her down and beaten her bloody – and Emily had disappeared.
Paige hadn't known whether the girl was alive or dead until this moment; all she'd had to go on from her apartment was a broken front door and a bloody knife in the kitchen. She'd looked for Emily, everywhere, had begged everyone she knew to keep their eyes out for her, but as the months had gone on, she'd all but given up hope that Emily had survived.
Sister Agnes had just given her back that hope.
She threw her car into park outside the church, giving an involuntary shiver at the way the gargoyles seemed to be staring down at her.
'The gargoyles are not alive,' she told herself, firmly, quashing the childhood fear that had prevented her from entering the church when she was nine. 'They are not going to swoop down and eat you.'
Squaring her shoulders, Paige marched past the gargoyles and into the church. She paused inside the door to let her eyes adjust to the light, and then she headed for the office at the back of the church. Inside the office, she found Sister Agnes, and a teenage girl hunched over in her chair, her long, red hair hanging in front of her face, hiding her from view.
"Emily?" Paige ventured, and the girl jerked her head up, staring at Paige like she'd seen a ghost.
"I'm not going back," she snapped, angrily, glaring at Paige, who shot Sister Agnes a baffled look.
"Back where, Em?" she asked, confused.
"You're here to take me back to my father," Emily snarled, her delicate features twisting into a snarl. "I'm not going back."
"I'm not taking you back to your father," Paige hastened to reassure the girl. "Besides, even if I tried, you'd just run away again, wouldn't you?"
Emily nodded, emphatically, and Paige sighed as she took the seat that Sister Agnes indicated, across from the teenager.
"I'm just here to talk, Em," she said, quietly.
"I don't need you," Emily snapped, her voice wavering despite her words. "I can take care of myself, and my baby."
"I don't doubt it," Paige told her. "But, maybe there are people out there who want to take care of you."
"Like who?" Emily muttered, flinching away from Paige when she reached out to take her hand.
"Like me," Paige said, softly. "I care about you, Em. I want to know that you're safe."
"I was supposed to be safe at your apartment," Emily sniped at her, and Paige could feel her heart sink in her chest.
"Emily-"
"You promised me that I would be safe!" the girl raged at her, her hands clenched into fists as she jumped up from her chair. "You swore that no one would be able to find me. But, Troy did, and he hurt me-"
"I'm sorry," Paige whispered, catching the girl into a fierce hug. "Emily, I am so, so sorry."
Emily just shook her head, shoving Paige away and bolting out of the office. Paige sighed, following behind her, and then she froze in shock when she realized that Emily was standing completely still in the middle of the aisle – so still she wasn't even breathing.
"Emily?" Paige demanded, rushing to the girl's side, and then she sighed when she caught sight of Piper and Phoebe standing a short distance away. "What did you do to her?" she demanded, angrily.
"What makes you think we did anything?" Piper asked, but Paige just leveled a glare at her, crossing her arms over her chest.
"She froze them," Phoebe spoke up, when it became clear that neither Paige nor Piper was willing to break their silent standoff.
'Them?' Paige thought, and then she turned around to see Sister Agnes standing in the doorway to the office, one foot raised to take the next step.
"You froze a nun?" Paige yelled, whirling back around her face the women.
"Yeah, lucky I didn't blow them up," Piper said, with a shrug. "My powers have been kind of off, lately."
"Blow them up?" Paige echoed. There was a faint roaring in her ears, the usual indicator that she was getting pissed beyond belief. But, unlike usual, she didn't feel the rush of her power filling her, threatening to explode from within her.
Which was good, because, with the way she felt at that moment, she ran the very real risk of doing her new sisters some very real damage.
"Undo it," she ordered, brusquely, gesturing at Emily and Sister Agnes. "Whatever you did to freeze them, you need to undo it."
"We need to talk to you," Phoebe protested, and Paige shot her a glare.
"I don't care," she said, quietly. "Take this freeze off them. Now."
"They're fine," Piper said, dismissively, and Paige breathed slowly, in and out, for several seconds, to keep from yelling at the older woman. "Look, Paige, you're in danger."
"The only thing I'm in danger of is losing my temper," Paige informed them.
"This is serious," Piper snapped at her. "There's a demon after you. The Source of All Evil. He wants your power; all of our powers."
"I don't-" Paige snapped, but Phoebe cut her off.
"The Source is the one who sent Shax after us," Phoebe interrupted her, softly. "He's the reason that Prue is dead."
'Damn it,' Paige thought, furiously, tears springing unbidden to her eyes. She dashed them away with the back of her hand. 'Damn it, Prue. Damn you for leaving me, like this.'
"What do you want?" she asked, only a hint of a tremor in her voice betraying the emotion that threatened to escape.
"We just wanted to make sure that you're okay," Phoebe said.
"I'm fine," Paige told her, and figured it had to have been genetic, the way that neither Piper or Phoebe looked like they believed the words, just like Prue had never believed her. Either that, or she really was that bad of a liar. "Now, would you please unfreeze Emily and Sister Agnes?"
"The Source is going to come after you," Piper warned her, and Paige held up a hand, summoning a bit of electricity to her fingers. She frowned when it took more effort than it usually did, but after a few seconds, sparks were jumping between her fingers.
"I'm not exactly helpless," she pointed out, closing her fingers into a fist and letting the sparks die.
"You, um," Phoebe spoke up, "you have Prue's power, too. At least, if you really are a Charmed One, and we never could have vanquished Shax if you weren't."
"What power is that?" Paige asked, curious despite herself.
"Telekinesis," Piper told her. "She could move things with her mind. You should be able to do the same."
"How?" Paige asked.
"Well," Phoebe said, looking around, "you just pick something, like that candle over there, and you wave your hand at it."
Feeling extremely foolish, Paige did as instructed, but nothing happened.
"She used to squint her eyes, too," Piper added, helpfully, and if the situation had been different, Paige would have been sure that the older women were trying to pull some kind of prank on her.
But, she obligingly squinted in the direction of the aforementioned candle, flapping her hand impatiently at it when it stubbornly refused to move.
"Maybe it didn't work," she said, with a sigh. "Maybe I don't have Prue's power, if I can't even move that candle-"
Then, her jaw dropped open in shock as the candle was surrounded by orbs, disappearing from the holder it had been sitting on. A second later, it rematerialized in the palm of her hand, solid and heavy. Phoebe grinned at her, taking the candle from her and blowing out the flame.
"Maybe the Whitelighter in her makes it work differently?" she suggested to Piper, like Paige wasn't standing right there.
"Half breed," Piper muttered, and Paige glared at her.
"All right, fun's over," she started, but then the rest of what she was going to say was cut off by a horrendous screaming sound. "What the hell is that?" she yelped, her hands flying up to cover her ears.
"Gargoyles," Phoebe whispered, and Paige stared at her in disbelief because, of course. Of course, in a world where witches and demons were real, the freaking gargoyles had to be alive.
"Oh my god," a voice gasped from behind her, and Paige whirled around to see Emily, unfrozen and staring at the still-frozen Sister Agnes with a look of sheer terror in her eyes.
"Emily," Paige started, but the girl backed away from her when she tried to get closer, her hands held up protectively in front of her chest.
"What is this?" she demanded, a hysterical note in her voice. "What's going on?"
"Emily, I can explain," Paige tried, but the girl wasn't listening to her.
She stumbled backwards, away from Paige, and fell heavily against the edge of a pew. Picking herself up before Paige could get there, she turned on her heel and bolted down the aisle, heading for the doors. The doors slammed open before she even got there, but Emily just kept running, bumping into a startled Henry and nearly knocking him back down the steps in her haste to get away.
"Paige, what's going on?" Henry asked, his face screwed up in a grimace at the sound of the unearthly screaming that filled the air.
"That's Emily," Paige said, gesturing in the direction the girl had gone in, and cursing when she didn't see her. "I have to find her, she's in trouble."
"All right," Henry said, grabbing her hand and pulling her down the steps. "Let's go; you drive."
Paige nodded, leading the way to her car and ignoring the distant shouts of her sisters, behind her. Source of All Evil be damned; Emily needed her help, and she wasn't going to let some demon stand in her way.
Continued here
