a/n: This fic is a Paige/Alex pairing set after season 5 and as such there are spoilers relating to them. I decided to have a go at writing a longer chapter-led story and it's turning into something of an epic, but we'll se how we go. This first chapter is extra long though, consider it something of a pilot episode. This is from Paige's POV. As always, feedback is most welcomed/appreciated.

Ashes

Chapter One

I let the wind whistle through my fingers like I did as a child. There isn't much of a breeze I suspect, but the speed at which we're driving, the whooshing feels powerful against my palm, all cool and refreshing. I smile inwardly; I'm nearly home again. I lean my arm against the rim of the car window and look over at Michael. He's so super sexy when he's driving, especially with his Ray Bans on.

He glances over at me and flashes me his boyish grin. "We're getting close. You're gonna have to direct me in a minute."

I look at the road ahead, it's all so familiar now. The trees, the neighbourhood. I almost want to hug myself I'm so excited. I haven't been back since Christmas. It was exciting then too, but in a different kind of way. I had only just started Banting then and still felt like a little fish floundering around in a very big and exclusive pond. I had spent this last whole year getting used to the whole living away from home thing, making new friends, figuring out who you could trust and who you couldn't. Messing up, making up, a couple of not so meaningful encounters and breaking-up. Oh yeah, and somewhere along the line there had been some studying thrown in there too. But eventually I had stumbled across Michael. He had been in a couple of my classes and we had been paired up to work on a project for our Organizational Psychology class. I liked order, he turned out to be pretty damn good at reading people. It was a match made in heaven.

And now I was bringing him home to meet the folks. And he was totally unfazed, despite my warnings. I couldn't bear the thought of a whole summer apart from him, but I thought that, being a guy and everything, the thought of parading him around my past might be a little daunting. "You'll love my parents, their super-nice," I had told him in between kisses." We were lying next to each other on his bed, another study session that had fizzled away into the summer afternoon.

"I'm sure I will, they made you," he said with a twinkle in his sparkling blue eyes.

I swatted his arm playfully, "don't over do it, mush-man."

He had laughed and pulled me closer to him. "Okay, okay," he conceded. "But what I mean is, don't worry about me liking them-"

"I'm not worried," I interrupted. This was half-true. "Well, not about my family anyway. It's just, y'know, a lot of my past is tied up in that place. My friends from high school, stuff that went on back there…" I trailed off. I wasn't quite sure what this feeling of nervousness was about. I had been seeing Michael for six months now. I trusted him implicitly and had opened up to him about much of my history, dating and otherwise. He knew about the rape, he knew about my student-teacher fling that had turned sour. And he had taken it all so well, never acting any less than a gentleman. He made me feel safe and secure. He was the first man to ever do that.

"So, what is it?" He asked, looking earnestly into my eyes as he ran his finger down my cheek. The gesture was so tender that it made me sigh. "You worried that we'll go for coffee or something and run into that Twister guy you used to go out with?"

"Spinner," I corrected him with a grin. "And you know his name."

"I know it's not a real name," he grinned back at me, before leaning in for another kiss that had put a premature end to the conversation.

And so he knew about my history with Spinner too. And had taken that in his stride as well. Because he was mature and confident and was with me and loved me and I loved him right back. This was one of those big grown-up loving relationships that I had read about, seen on TV, heard about from my mother. This was a sign that I was growing up. This was totally good. And yet there was this little tiny twinge in my gut. Or was it my head. Or even, dare I say it, my heart? Wherever it was coming from, I had chosen to ignore it, suppress the anxiety that was slowly clawing its way into my perfect present. This summer was about the future and looking ahead to a new beginning shared with the people I loved around me.

Michael knew about everything and he was still the man for me. What had I left out?

"And it's this next one on the left," I flap my arm excitedly as we pull into my parents' driveway. He turns off the engine and looks at me, trepidation mingling with curiosity.

"You ready hun?" I ask, my eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, let's do it, " he replies as he slides off his seat belt and comes around to my side of the car to get the door for me.

We leave our bags and stroll hand in hand to the front door. Before I open it I give him a final look and smooth his fringe behind his ear. His dark curls are getting too long and keep flopping in his eyes. It makes him look cute and younger than he really is.

"Thank you for doing this," I say as I give him a quick kiss on the lips.

"My pleasure. I love you Paige." He says smiling.

I beam a little with excitement and tap his arm, "Okay," I say as I breathe in and open the door. "We're hee-ree!"

"Oh my God! Oh my God! Look at you!" I run to greet Hazel with open arms. "You look amazing!" I hold her back and give her the once over. She is dressed to perfection in the tightest pair of jeans and a slinky off the shoulder number that I mentally note down for myself. "How are you? Oh my God, look at your shoes!"

"You like?" she says as we part to examine her footwear further.

"I love! Whose are they- wait we should get a table, oh my God, Michael!" I stop myself mid-babble at the sudden realisation that I haven't even introduced my boyfriend to my best friend yet.

"God, Mikey, I am so sorry. This is Hazel, my best best friend for years."

"Hi, sorry about that," Hazel gives an embarrassed grin as she shakes his hand.

"Oh, that's okay, I'm getting used to it," Michael replies.

We find a table amid the high school students and order some coffee.

"Weird isn't it?" Hazel says, looking around.

"What, being back, or being in the Dot?" I ask.

"Well both, but I meant sitting here. Y'know, amongst all these students. It's only been a year, but they all seem so young." She shakes her head in disbelief.

"Tell me about it. I keep feeling like I've forgotten to do my homework or something. That Spinner should be behind that counter."

Hazel raises her eyebrows at me over her mug. Michael is sharp enough to catch the gesture. I look over at him and then back at Hazel, "What? Oh no, he's okay."

"Yeah, don't worry about it," Michael reassures Hazel as he drapes his arm around my shoulder and I instinctively lean towards him. "I know all about Paige's dubious past." He looks at me with a devilish grin.

"Dubious? Is that the word for it now?" I retort, but I know he's just trying to set my mind at rest. I have felt slightly edgy ever since we rolled on into town a couple days ago. I don't know why, so far everyone's loved him. Dylan and Marco think he's the best thing that's ever happened to me, my mother even made some thinly veiled comments about his future plans i.e. when are you going to make an honest woman of my daughter. I did have to kick her under the table for that. I mean, he is all I could wish for, but six months is still six months…

"Well, as far as I know Spinner is on vacation with Darcy, but he does still do shifts here," Hazel says.

"Really, how very retro," I say as we clink mugs and toast some of our memories that are still living on.

Michael excuses himself to use the rest room, although perhaps he secretly knows that I'm just dying to hear Hazel's appraisal of him. Like I said before, he's good at reading people. "Now that," she points at his retreating form, "is one good guy."

" I know, right?" I concur with a squeal of whole-hearted enthusiasm. "God, and I was so nervous about bringing him back home, but it's been great, everyone loves him."

"Why were you nervous?" Hazel asks as she starts to absently pick at the muffin that she has yet to consume.

"Oh, y'know, just that, what with my previous dating history, and now everything just seems so on an even keel, this is just the perfect relationship y'know? I mean, he treats me so well, and we never argue, well- I mean, sometimes we argue, like last week when we went to get coffee and I really wanted Timothy's and he wanted Starbucks-"

"Oh please, have you tried their Mocha-Java Decaf?"

"I know, to die for, totally. So anyways, Timothy's was all the way across town from where we were, so I, being the understanding and adult girlfriend that I am, acquiesce and say, I see the logic, let's go to Starbucks, but no he hails a cab, whisks me away, spends the remaining cash on it, escorts me all the way home without a word of complaint…I mean who would do that for me? Spinner might have once, but he'd constantly remind me every step of the way, I doubt Matt would have had the money for a cab in the first place, let alone cared and Alex…" I trail off. Damn, I hadn't thought of Alex for a while.

"She's in town y'know," Hazel states bluntly, as if it isn't the mind-numbing, earth shattering wake-up call that I have been subconsciously avoiding since our last encounter.

"She-she is?" I stammer before mentally kicking myself back into fully functional Paige mode again. "How do you know?"

"I saw her. Yesterday. I don't think she saw me though. I was getting into my car and she was across the street."

I'm still taking this in and barely register Michael sitting back down next to me. "How did she look?" I try and ask casually.

"Mm… serious, or pissed off. I couldn't tell. She was a way aways. But, like Alex, I guess. You haven't kept in contact I take it?"

"Well, yeah occasionally. I saw her at Christmas." This was sort of true. I bumped into her, literally, during the Christmas break.

Christmas had not been the joyous seasonal fare that I usually indulged in. If anything, running home had been something of a relief, a chance to lick my wounds after a disastrous term-long courtship between me and the cutest guy on campus. I had liked him, he had wanted me. Beer was involved. But in the morning he just didn't want to know. Why I had not seen him for what he was before I slept with him, I know not. He certainly had the reputation as a serial womaniser. But I was new to this life and I guess I just felt like I wanted to try everything.

But I had come back home feeling like an idiot, ashamed and embarrassed and unable to believe the optimism with which I spoke about my marvellous new life at Banting. All this was before Michael, of course.

I had gone for a walk one evening and it was absolutely freezing. The cold air had wrapped around my head, numbing my thoughts and helping to ease the pain. Just as I was beginning to feel better about things, to take in the beauty of my surroundings with the Christmas lights twinkling in the darkness, she appeared. Appeared and quite literally took my breath away. As we collided on the sidewalk.

"Shit!" she said at the hot chocolate that was now spewing forth from its cardboard cup onto the concrete slabs.

" I am so sorry-" I began, brushing myself down and looking up to meet her unexpectedly familiar eyes.

"Paige. Jesus."

"Alex." I had seen her before I left for university of course. Things had changed since we'd broken up. We didn't mix much socially over the summer before, but if we hung out as a group we could converse. It was sort of awkward because everyone was there and they all knew how things had been. Or ended rather. But somehow we both knew it would have been harder if the whole gang hadn't been there. Like now…

"It's really good to see you," I began. It was true, it was. At that point I was feeling totally sorry for myself. I had been stupid and as a result I had been used. I felt foolish, dirty almost. But here, standing before me, was the girl who had thought the world of me. Even though she knew our worlds were different. Too different. But in that moment just her standing there before me was enough to bring back the happy memories we had briefly shared. I needed someone to indulge me then.

"How've you been?" she asked me, almost stiffly it sounded, but possibly just because we were standing outside on the frozen sidewalk about to become human Popsicles.

"Oh, just…miserable…" I looked down at my feet. I didn't want to cry and felt dangerously close to doing so.

"Paige," she said softly and took a step toward me. Reached out her hand to grasp my arm and give it a reassuring squeeze.

It was only meant as a friendly gesture. I knew that. But the contact sparked a greater need. To be comforted. Comforted by someone who knew me and who knew how to give it in the right way. I suddenly flung my arms around her neck and pulled myself to her.

Instinctively her arms seemed to wrap around my waist, equally tight. "Paige?" she sounded confused. "What is it? What's happened?" She was rubbing her hand up and down my back. The familiarity of the gesture felt so reassuring.

"I met this guy," I blurted out into her shoulder. Her stroking seemed to pause ever so briefly before resuming. "I liked him, but he was a dick."

She gave a slight snort. "Yeah well, they usually are."

"Yeah," I agreed as I pulled my face away from her and rubbed my thawing nose.

We started to walk together, she with her hands buried in her coat pockets and me with my arm linked through hers. The closeness started to warm me and revive my spirits a little. Or cloud my thoughts, depending on your point of view.

She had asked about other things, my course, my new friends. She laughed at my semi-amusing descriptions of some of my more eccentric lecturers and did her best to appear sympathetic to my heavy workload. At last we came to a park bench where we sat for a few minutes as it started to sleet.

I huddled myself against her and looked up expectantly. But she was staring into the distance with an unreadable expression on her face. I took her hand from out of her pocket and wrapped her arm around me. "It's cold," I said in explanation as she looked down at me.

"Yeah," she agreed, making no attempt to remove it, but also not instigating anything further.

We sat on that bench for a few more minutes in silence. A nearby lamppost illuminated the breath emerging like clouds of smoke from our mouths.

"I miss this," I said at last. Alex looked at me directly then. Her eyes seemed so dark that I couldn't tell her pupils from her dark brown irises. They looked like two black holes, unknown depths, revealing nothing. "I miss you," I began again. It was true. At that moment it was true. Up until that point, my life had been filled with new beginnings, new possibilities, everything that Alex had wanted for herself after we had broken up. I didn't know if she had found it, but I certainly had. And it had consumed my time and filled me up and made me not think about her for all those months we were separated. But suddenly, there and then, on that blisteringly cold park bench as the snowflakes drifted between us, I wished back everything that had kept us apart.

At the time it felt like maybe she had leaned into me, but looking back I know it was me who had initiated that kiss. It started off tentative and soft. Our lips felt cool against each other in the night air. It could almost have been a friendly gesture, giving comfort to each other against the elements. But then she shifted almost imperceptively around, allowing me to embrace her properly and her fingers were in my hair then and her tongue was in my mouth, and she felt warm and everything seemed to resolve itself for one magical minute.

When we pulled apart her arms were around my waist and I was snuggled tight against her, my head on her shoulder. I stole a glance up at her, surprised to find her looking so melancholic.

"It wasn't that bad, was it?" I teased her.

It had the desired effect as she broke into a smile. But here eyes still had that hollow quality that made me confused. They used to be so lively, mocking, sparkling, but never…why was she so sad?

"So…what now?"

"It's pretty late. And I'm freezing. I have to get home." She stood up as she said this, barely looking at me. "Are you going to be all right getting home?"

Not really, I wanted to say, perplexed and disappointed. I paused on the off chance that she might invite me back with her, but no invitation came and I sensed there was no point in me making one. Instead I tried to sound casual, keep things friendly.

"So, I'm in town for another week. Am I going to see you again?"

"Actually, Paige, this might sound like bad timing, or good timing, I dunno, but…I'm leaving for New York tomorrow."

"New York?" I was impressed. A million fashion requests flashed before my eyes before the situation reaffirmed itself and brought me back to earth. "Well, when are you back?"

"I'm not coming back. I've got a job there. I'm going out, to live."

"Wait. What? A job? What, but, what…" My shock and rising indignation fizzled as I looked at her. It was happening again, that expression in her eyes, my automatic presumptions. She was dumping me all over again. We weren't even together this time.

"It's an internship. For a publishing house. My cousin lives there and said I could stay with him for a while. His friend told him about it. I applied…" She let out a long and weary sigh as she looked over at me. I guessed that my face was anything but a mask to my emotions by that stage.

"Look, Paige, when we broke-up, it was for a reason, y'know?" she grabbed each of my hands as she said all this to me. All that I already knew. And I just nodded dumbly along. "I needed to figure out where I wanted to go, what I wanted to be. You already seemed to know."

"And…you want to go to New York. You want to be some city slicker, publishing executive…la di da socialite," the bitterness creeping into my voice seemed beyond my control. She didn't want me. No one wanted me.

"I don't know what I want to be. But, yeah, I want to give it a try. I don't want to just stay here. If I stay here, I'll just rot. I'll just be nothing. I need to try and do this for myself."

"Alex, you're not nothing," I said despairingly, not letting go of her hands.

And we embraced for a final time and I don't know if I was becoming delirious from the cold, or from the exhaustion of the emotion, but I kept on whispering into her ear as I clung to her, "You'll never be nothing to me. Never, ever, ever, ever…" until the tears started to come again and she wisely pulled back.

"You'll be okay, I know you will," she said softly as she held her hand to my chin and ducked her head for a final kiss, a mere brush of the lips and then she stepped back and our contact was broken. Just a few feet and already it felt like a chasm.

"Goodbye Paige," and she turned and disappeared, enveloped by the night.