Author's Note: This was written for scifiromance, who wanted: maybe one where Paige sees her adoptive parents after the birth of Henry Mitchell Jr. Scifiromance, I don't know if this was exactly what you were imagining, but I hope you like your request.

Guardians

"Aunt Paige? Are we done yet?"

Paige winced in sympathy when she heard the whining tone in Wyatt's voice that he was trying hard to hide. She'd been drafted into babysitting her nephews that morning, they'd spent all day running around town going to the doctor and getting her errands done, and, while her nephews had been model kids all day, she could sense that both boys had hit the limits of their patience.

"Sorry, guys," she said, apologetically, glancing back at them as she pulled into the parking lot of the bank. "We've just got one more stop to make, and then, I swear, we're done. We'll go do whatever you want, I promise."

"Can we go get ice cream?" Chris asked, an excited tone in his voice for the first time in hours. "Please, Aunt Paige?"

"Ice cream, it is," Paige said, as she parked the car. When her unborn baby kicked her stomach, she grinned. "And, I think your baby cousin wants ice cream, too."

"Everyone wants ice cream," Chris pointed out, sensibly, as they climbed out of the car. "Especially if it's pistachio."

"Eww," Wyatt said, automatically, like Paige knew he would. "Chocolate chip's better."

"Is not," Chris retorted, and Paige listened to their playful banter all the way into the bank.

They got into line, and Paige juggled her purse in her arms as she dug for a deposit slip at the bottom of the bag. She filled out the slip while they shuffled along, slowly, and she was two people from the front of the line when she started to get an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, the same kind of sensation she got when she was sensing demons.

And she'd been a witch for far too long to ignore those kinds of feelings.

Deliberately dropping her pen on the floor, she crouched down to grab it, pulling Wyatt and Chris close to her in the process. The boys looked at her in confusion, but Paige motioned for them to be quiet before either of them could speak.

"Wyatt," she said, softly, nodding at a sign on the far side of the room, "do you see that sign for the bathroom?"

"Yeah," Wyatt said, quietly, following her gaze.

His voice quavered, slightly, as he picked up on her sudden tension, and Paige took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.

"I want you and Chris to go in there, and stay there until I come to get you," she told the seven-year-old. "And, if you hear anything bad, I want you to orb straight to Magic School, no matter what."

"Hey, lady," a voice snapped from behind her. "Get a move on."

"Hold your horses," Paige snapped back, glaring at the man. "His shoe is untied."

"Aunt Paige," Wyatt whispered, nervously, when she turned her attention back to her, and she smiled, reassuringly.

"It's okay," she said, giving both boys a quick hug. "I'm sure everything is going to be fine. Just go, okay?"

After a moment, Wyatt nodded, taking Chris's hand and leading his brother across the room toward the bathroom. Paige watched them go, worriedly, and then she turned her attention to the rest of the bank. She moved forward, absently, as she focused her sensing power on the people around her.

The unsettling sensation was still there, in the pit of her stomach, and it got worse when she focused her power on a young man standing by the doors, staring down at the ground. He had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his oversized coat, and when he pulled one hand out to rub at his forehead, she could see him visibly shaking.

'Something's wrong, there,' she thought, just a second before the young man jerked his other hand out of his pocket, aiming something at the ceiling.

She had a split second to register the object in his hands as a gun, and then he pulled the trigger, sending a bullet into the overhead lights. There was a sound like a small explosion, and the light shattered, raining a thousand shards of glass down on the floor. For just a second, there was absolute silence in the bank, and then the screaming started.

Paige could see the man's mouth moving, saying something, but she couldn't hear him over the frantic screams of the people around her. Then, the young man fired another round into the ceiling, and the screaming stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

"Everyone, shut up!" the young man yelled, his voice carrying across the large lobby. "Sit down!"

Everyone around her immediately dropped to the floor, and Paige found herself standing, alone, as she tried to lower herself to the floor. She swore, softly, under her breath when the young man's attention was instantly drawn to her, his eyes narrowing.

"I said, sit down!" he barked, furiously, and Paige flinched when she saw his hands shake on the gun. She didn't want to do anything to make him fire that thing, again.

"She's pregnant," a new voice snapped, and at a hand on her elbow, Paige looked over at her unexpected defender.

The man who'd gotten testy when she'd been moving too slowly in line was back on his feet, helping her to sit down on the hard floor. He glared, openly, at their captor as he helped Paige, his hands gentle on her arms as he guided her down to the floor.

"You all right?" he muttered, when they were both sitting, again, and Paige nodded, shortly.

"I'm fine," she murmured, quietly.

"Lucky for you that your boys had to go to the bathroom, huh?" he went on, and Paige smiled, tightly.

"Yeah," she agreed, hoping that Wyatt and Chris had enough sense to listen to her and stay where she told them to. "Lucky."

They both fell quiet when the gunman looked over at them, sharply, and Paige could feel her heartbeat ratchet up at the sight of the man's finger twitching nervously on the trigger.

'Please,' she prayed, silently. 'Just take whatever you're after, and go. Just leave us alone, please.'

"You okay?" the guy next to her muttered, when he saw her hands clenching into fists. Giving her large stomach a dubious glance, he added, "You're not going to go into labor, are you?"

"I'm not due for another two weeks," Paige replied, absently, and the guy breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

So, naturally, that was when she felt the first contraction hit.

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Twenty minutes later, as yet another contraction hit, Paige clenched her jaw, tightly, gripping her neighbor's hand to ride out the pain. When the contraction ended, she let go of the man's hand, taking a deep breath.

"Sorry," she muttered, sheepishly, when she saw the man surreptitiously flexing his hand to try and get feeling back in his fingers.

"Little nervous, are we?" the man asked, dryly, shooting her a sidelong glance.

"I can't possibly imagine why," Paige retorted, softly, pasting an innocent smile on her face when their captor glanced over in their direction from where he was ordering the tellers to put money into bags.

Then, as the young man looked over to the far side of the room, a scowl fixed on his face, Paige twisted around to follow his gaze. Two minutes earlier, he'd let two of the other hostages up to go to the bathroom, with the threat of killing one of the rest of them if they tried anything. As promised, the two young women had returned, but to Paige's horror, they had Wyatt and Chris with them.

"What's this?" the young man demanded, glaring at the boys, and Paige's eyes narrowed at his tone, ready to jump up and defend her nephews at the first hint of danger, no matter how much pain she was in.

"We – we found them hiding in the bathroom," one of the girls stammered, nervously, staring at the gun the young man was still brandishing. "We didn't want them running out here and getting hurt, so-"

"Sit down," the young man snapped, gesturing impatiently at the rest of the group with his gun. "You, too," he growled at Wyatt and Chris, who cringed away from the young man.

The boys practically ran to her side, both of them shaking with fear. Chris crawled into her lap as soon as they sat down, and Wyatt plastered himself to her side, his eyes wide with terror.

"I'm sorry, Aunt Paige," he whispered, sneaking fearful glances at the man with the gun. "We tried to hide, like you said-"

"It's okay, sweetie," Paige reassured him, quietly, hugging the boy, tightly. "It's okay. Just stay right by me, okay?"

"I'm scared," Chris whimpered, burrowing into her arms, and Paige stroked a hand through his hair, gently.

"Everything's going to be okay," she murmured, softly, rocking the little boy in her arms. "I promise. Everything's going to be fine."

"Shut up over there!" their captor yelled, suddenly, whirling around and glaring at her. "No talking!"

"They're scared," Paige tried to explain, but the man wasn't going to let her finish.

"I don't care," he growled. "Just shut them up."

Chris, who was already practically vibrating with sheer terror, burst into hastily-muffled sobs at the tone in the young man's voice. Paige wrapped her arms around the five-year-old, shushing him, quietly, as he buried his face against her chest. But, she wasn't fast enough.

"I said shut up!" the young man yelled, stalking over to where they were sitting.

There was a wild look in his eyes, and he was waving the gun around, erratically, as he stalked over, ranting at her.

"If you can't keep those damn kids quiet-" he snarled at her, gesturing emphatically with the gun, and Paige saw his finger tighten involuntarily on the trigger.

Without even thinking about it, she grabbed Wyatt and Chris and shoved them behind her, twisting around and shielding them with her body.

"Bullet," she muttered, under her breath, as she heard the hammer of the gun fall.

There was a moment of white-hot pain as the bullet slammed into her spine, and then she could feel the hot piece of smashed metal form in the palm of her hand as she orbed it out of the air. Numbly, she let the bullet fall to the carpet, and then she followed it a second later.

The world went gray in front of her eyes as she crashed to the floor, and she could faintly hear Wyatt and Chris screaming in fear. She tried to reassure them that she was all right, but she couldn't hear herself speak over the outraged yells coming from the other hostages. She tried to move, but her limbs wouldn't cooperate. All she could do was lie there, helplessly, and pray for help to come.

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She drifted through the pain. Around her, she could hear people shouting, with some of the voice bordering on hysterical. She managed to roll over onto her back, her head falling listlessly to the side, and she could see Wyatt and Chris sitting nearby, hugging each other tightly and staring at her in absolute fear.

'It's going to be okay,' she tried to tell them, but she couldn't force the words past her lips. She couldn't do anything except lie there, bleeding on the floor.

'Henry, I'm so sorry,' she thought, desperately, her husband's smiling face flashing through her mind. 'I love you, so much, and I wish-'

"Paige."

She flapped her head weakly to the side, trying to locate the whispery voice. It sounded familiar, but in her hazy, pain-filled state, she couldn't place it.

"Paige, hang on, sweetheart."

There was that whispery voice, again, this time joined by another, just as familiar voice. Then, to her amazement, the air in front of her eyes started to shimmer. The air twisted, forming into two, vaguely human shapes, and then her parents stood in front of her, smiling sadly down at her.

"Mom?" Paige mumbled, her voice barely audible, but Christine Matthews nodded, encouragingly, crouching down next to her daughter.

"Hang on, sweetheart," she murmured, brushing a spectral hand across Paige's forehead. "Help is on the way."

"My baby," she whispered, panic filling her when she realized that her unborn child was in distress, his heartbeat racing, dangerously. "Mom-"

"Your son is going to be fine," her father told her, his voice filled with a quiet confidence. 'Paige-'

Whatever else he was going to say was cut off when Wyatt and Chris crept across the floor to Paige's side. They both curled up next to her, seemingly oblivious of the ghosts standing nearby, and Paige started to wonder if she was hallucinating her parents.

On either side of her, the boys reached across her swollen stomach, linking hands. Then, both their hands began to glow with a soft light, healing energy pouring from them and into her baby. Paige could feel her baby responding to their power, his heart rate slowing down to a safe level. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief, but then her own pain ratcheted up when the boys dropped hands, their combined healing power dying down.

Her breath hitched, and she could feel her heart rate start to rise. Blackness was encroaching on the edges of her vision, and she clenched her hands into fists, trying to stay conscious.

'Can't-' she thought, struggling against the darkness that threatened to overtake her. 'Wyatt and Chris need me-'

"It's all right, sweetheart," her mother murmured, soothing, coolness shooting through Paige as Christine brushed her hand against her cheek. "We've got you; just let go."

"Can't-" she forced out, as a jolt of pain shot through her.

"It's all right, Paige," her father said, quietly. "It's all right; we'll take care of you."

Nodding weakly, Paige let her eyes fall closed. Her father had never lied to her, before, and she doubted that he'd start, now. So, she gave up the fight and let the blackness take over.

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When Paige woke up to white all around her, for a moment, she thought that she'd been transported Up There. For one wild second, she thought that she was dead, especially since she couldn't sense her baby, any longer, but she figured that she wouldn't hurt as much as she did if she was dead.

She tried to push herself up into a sitting position, but she stopped at a sudden pain that shot through her arms. There were IV lines going into her left arm, with slightly cloudy liquid slowly dripping into her veins, and there was a soft brace around her right wrist. She experimentally tried to flex her wrist, grimacing when her arm protested the movement.

'Not going to try that one, again,' she thought, ruefully.

Looking around, she realized that she was lying in a room at San Francisco Memorial. It might have even been the same room that she'd woken up in after her car accident eight years ago, if the stain on the far wall was anything to go by. But, the room wasn't completely the same.

Then, she'd woken up alone, waiting for her sisters to get there. Now, Henry was curled up in a fold-out cot next to her bed, sound asleep.

She was starting to wonder how long she'd been unconscious, if Henry had fallen asleep waiting for her to wake up, but then he started to stir. He stretched on the cot, shifting slightly, and that was when she saw their son curled up on his chest, held safely in place in Henry's strong arms.

"He's beautiful," she whispered, instantly charmed by the sight of her sleeping infant.

"Yes, he is," a voice murmured, and she whipped her head around to see her parents standing at the foot of her bed.

"Mom?" she asked, incredulously. "Dad?"

"Hello, sweetheart," her father said, smiling at her.

"You're really here?" Paige asked, dubiously, wanting to make sure that she wasn't dreaming. When they both nodded, she continued, "And you were there, in the bank?"

"We were there," her mother confirmed. "We're always with you, Paige."

"I know," Paige said. "I just – I thought that maybe I was dreaming."

"That was no dream," her father told her. "When we saw what was happening – we couldn't let you go through that, alone."

"I'm glad you were there," Paige told them, and then she was interrupted by a soft knock on the door frame.

"Aunt Paige?"

Paige looked up at the sound of a quiet voice coming from the doorway to her hospital room, smiling when she saw her nephews peeking shyly around the edge of the doorway.

"Hey, there are my heroes," she said, proudly. She gestured at them to come into the room, and they crept slowly closer to the bed. "What are you doing here? It's the middle of the night," she added, glancing out the window at the darkness that lay beyond.

"We wanted to see if you and the baby were okay," Chris told her, as they stopped beside Henry's cot and peered down at the baby lying in her sleeping husband's arms.

"We're fine," Paige said, reassuringly. "See for yourself," she added, nodding down at her son.

"He's so tiny," Wyatt breathed, reaching out and brushing the baby's head with his fingers.

"You saved his life, you know," Paige commented. "If you two hadn't healed him-"

"It was Wyatt's idea," Chris told her, solemnly, clambering up on the bed beside her and carefully arranging himself against her side. "I just tried to help."

"I am very proud of both of you," Paige told them, quietly, kissing them both on the head as Wyatt climbed up and curled up on her other side. "You were very brave, in the bank."

"We're all very proud of you," her mother added, and Wyatt's eyes went almost comically wide as he whipped his head around to stare at the ghosts.

"Who are you?" he whispered, staring at them in amazement.

"Do you remember how I told you that I was adopted?" Paige asked, and both boys nodded. "Well," she continued, "this is my mom and my dad."

"You were at the bank," Chris said, slowly, as he stared at the ghosts, and the sound of his voice jerked Henry out of sleep.

"What's with all the noise?" Henry muttered, suddenly, his voice groggy with sleep. "Paige?"

"Hey, honey," she said, affectionately, leaning over the edge of her bed to look down at him. "You okay?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" he asked, rhetorically, pushing himself up, carefully, mindful of the baby cradled in his arms. "By the way, you've given me enough heart attacks to last me the rest of my life."

"I'm sorry," Paige said, quietly, and Henry reached up with his free hand to squeeze hers, gently.

He started to say something, but then he cut himself off when he saw the other people in the room.

"Honey?" he murmured, questioningly, nodding at her parents. "Aren't your parents dead?"

"Oh, we still are," her mother said, a little too cheerfully in Paige's opinion. "We just like to check up on Paige from time to time."

"You knew when you married me that my dead relatives would be popping in all the time," Paige pointed out, and Henry nodding, accepting her logic. "Of course," Paige added, pointedly, with a mock glare at her parents, "they usually try to avoid public places where other people can see them."

"We can't stay long," her father told her. "We just wanted to make sure that you were all right, sweetheart, you and the baby, both."

"We're fine, thanks to you and the boys," Paige said, smiling at her parents. "Hey," she added, quickly, when they started to fade from view, "stop by to see all your grandkids, sometime. The girls would really like to meet you."

"We will," her mother told her, her voice going distant, and then they were gone.

"You okay?" Henry asked, quietly, as she stared wistfully at the spot where her parents had been standing.

"Yeah," Paige told him, smiling sadly. "It's just hard – they can't stop by very often, and they can't stay very long when they do. I know I'm lucky getting to see them as much as I do, but it doesn't feel like enough, you know?"

"You've still got us," Chris piped up, and Paige hugged him to her.

"I know I do, sweetie," she said, as he and Wyatt snuggled up against her sides. "I love you both, so much."

"And," Henry spoke up, as he stood up from his cot, cradling the baby carefully to his chest, "you've got someone else who's been waiting to meet you."

A grin broke out over Paige's face as she freed her arms from around Wyatt and Chris's shoulders, reaching eagerly for their son as Henry handed him carefully to her.

"Hi, angel," she crooned, at the baby, brushing a finger lightly over his cheek. Her son blinked up at her, bright blue eyes watching her, curiously, and he grabbed her finger in a surprisingly strong grip. "Hi, baby. Welcome home."