Chapter 10: The End of Everything

A/N: I didn't intend to update this yet, but I thought some reviews would make me feel better. Having a very sucky summer. I have lots of time to write now, so I'm trying to make myself do it. This chapter is mostly about where Paige goes. What happens to Grams is discussed in the next chapter. I have a lot of ideas for this story…so just gotta make myself write them. Read and Review! It'll motivate me!

The ambulance arrived fairly quickly, but to the Halliwell sisters, it seemed like a lifetime. All four of them crouched around their grandmother. Prue, who was trained in CPR, started doing artificial breathing, and chest compressions. She was instructing Piper in how to assist her, but it made very little difference. Prue didn't want to say it aloud, but CPR could only do so much.

When the ambulance finally arrived, Phoebe let them in, and showed them where Grams still lay. Everyone was pushed out of the way while a small crown of paramedics crowded around Grams. Prue kept trying to find out what was the matter, but no one would tell her anything. She hate dnot knowing what was going on, and the fact that they wouldn't let her seemed only to be a bad sign.

Paige was scared. She had never been part of an emergency situation like this. When Phoebe had had her accident, she had come to see her only after the fact. Now every moment counted. A single action could be the difference between life and death. This was the first time Paige had met Mrs. Halliwell, but none the less she was very concerned. Already, Mrs. Halliwell felt like family.

It seemed like the paramedics had been there for hours, but in reality, it was only a minute or two. They talked in hushed voices, so none of the girls could hear. What could they hear that was so bad?

As the paramedics put Grams onto a stretcher, the sisters followed. A harried looking young man ran to them and smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, but only two of you can go in the ambulance."

Prue, Piper and Phoebe looked at each other. For the first time, Paige felt a little left out. The Halliwells had such a bond that they could communicate without saying a word. Paige wanted that. "It's okay Prue, you and Phoebe can go. I'll stay here with Paige." Paige looked at them incredulously. She could't figure out how they had done this; communicate with no words.

Prue gave her a swift searching look. "Are you sure?" she asked incredulously. Piper hesitated for a moment, then nodded. There were silent tears running down her face. Phoebe and Prue made there way to the door. With one last look at Paige and Piper, they left. Neither Piper nor Paige knew how long they'd be gone.

Piper sat down on the couch, and Paige took a seat on the arm chair after her. They didn't know what to say to each other. For a while they listened to the sound of the siren getting further and further away. There was a very awkward silence. Paige couldn't help but admire the way Piper was always so nice, and seemed so strong in every situation.

Piper also couldn't help but admire Paige. She had everything that Piper had always wanted. She had a mother, a father, and she had confidence. This awkward silence was horrible for the both of them.

Finally Paige said, " Piper…um…are you okay?" Piper looked up. Her eyes met Paige's, and once again, she saw the striking similarity in both of their eyes. It was understandable, but sometimes, the two of them forgot that they were truly sisters.

Piper thought a few moments before answering Paige's question. Was she really okay? "I guess I'm as okay as I'd ever be", she said hesitantly. "Very worried of course", she paused, "You know what would make me feel better?"

"What?" Paige said eagerly. It wasn't only making Piper feel better that she was eager about. Anything was better than this awkward silence. She also secretly hoped that she and Piper could bond. Perhaps they would form the sisterly bond she so envied. The sister she had always dreamed about was exactly like Piper.

"I'd really like to cook something", she said. "it always makes me feel better."

So Piper and Paige went to the kitchen. Paige didn't enjoy cooking at all, but she wanted to help. She wanted Piper to like her. Piper seemed a little happier, a little more like herself. She grabbed one of the many cookbooks along one of the shelves. It seemed like Grams enjoyed to cook as well. Piper picked out a simple recipe for chocolate cake and they got to work.

Now not only did Paige dislike cooking, she was also bad at it, but under Piper guidance, she did okay. Piper seemed so at home in the kitchen. It all looked so natural for her. Her hands moved with ease, and she didin't even have to look at the ingredients. All the while she hummed, but she didn't say a word. It didn't feel as awkward as Paige had expected it to be

Finally, she put the cake in the oven, sat down and sighed. ""Thanks for doing that with me Paige", she said earnestly.

"No problem", Paige said with a smile.She enjoyed Piper's approval, which she so craved.

"You know, we could do a lot together. You're really cool.", Piper said with a smile. Piper was finally truly warming up to the fact that she now had three sisters instead of two.

" I think so too", Paige said. Now she too was smiling.

"I'm glad that you're my sister, Piper said softly.

Paige was positively beaming when she heard this. She knew that it was difficult for Piper to call her a sister. She had never called her "sister" before.With that one simple word, Piper had accepted Paige into the family. "I'm glad we're sisters too", Paige replied getting a little choked up. Then they hugged.

At that moment, the door bell rang. Piper rushed to get it. She was hoping it was Prue or Phoebe, coming to tell them about Grams. A smiling, vaguely familiar women stood in the doorway. "Hi, is Paige there? I'm her mom", she said kindly. Piper had almost forgotten that Paige didn't live there…that she had a different family. Paige heard her mother at the door, so she came up to meet them.

"Hi mom", Paige said. Piper could tell her baby sister was hesitating for some reason. She thought that Paige might tell her mother about what happened to Grams, but she didn't. "Do you think I can sleep over or something?" Paige asked.

Mrs. Matthews considered this for a moment. Paige almost thought she'd say yes. "I'm sorry, but you have school tomorrow, and your father has off, so it's family game night.", Mrs. Matthews said patiently. Paige protested a lot. She hated family game night. She was much too old to enjoy it anymore. It was becoming her biweekly torture.

Every other weeks, when Mr. Matthews, a firefighter, had a day off from work, the Matthews family had a family game night. They would go out for dinner at a restaurant, go home, and play a game. Paige used to look forward to these nights, and enjoyed them thoroughly when she was much younger. Recently, she began to hate all things she deemed childish, and family game night was one of them. She just didn't like it anymore.

Tonight, family game night would be doubly worse. For one thing, she was very worried about Mrs. Halliwell. She wanted to spend time with her new sisters. She had yet to tell her parents about finding them. Paige was pretty sure they didn't have a clue as to what was going on. Paige once had a very close relationship with her parents, but she felt they didn't understand her anymore. They didn't really have much to talk about.

"It's okay Paige…I'll be okay", Piper said. Paige wasn't really reassured. Begrudgingly, Paige followed her mother out the door and into the car. Her father was already waiting, which was unusual. Usually, they went to pick him up at the firestation. Paige supposed today he had gotten off work early.

Paige tried to push any negative thoughts from her mind, but apparently, it wasn't working. She wanted to at least pretend to enjoy tonight for her parents' sake, but she just couldn't do it. "Paige, honey, I just can't understand why you're sulking. You've been so distant lately. This family night used to be one of the highlights of your life. It's good for us as a family. I just couldn't understand what changed."

That tone of voice made Paige furious. She couldn't believe that her mother could get away with talking to her like that. If she'd talked to her mother like that, she'd surely be grouded. What really angered her was the same disappointed and slightly condescending tone Paige heard every day. I'm growing up, and anything I do is never good enough for you, that's what changed! That's what Paige wanted to yell, but she didn't have enough guts for that.

What Paige did instead was stare at her feet and mumble, "I just don't like it anymore."

Mrs. Matthews had no response to this, but Paige's father sure had a lot to say. "Well, you had better enjoy it tonight, because your report card just came in, and I wasn't happy." Paige cringed at this. Her report card was never antying to be proud of, but that wasn't her fault.

It was true that Paige's marks weren't that great. This was partially because of her lack of effort in certain subjects. Things like math and science were so boring to her they put her to sleep. Well...not literally, but she found it difficult to pay attention. It was also very difficult for her to understand. Of course, her parents hadn't noticed her As in art and music. Either that, or they didn't care. Paige tended to belive that they didn't care.

For five minutes, the car was total silence. Paige didn't like uncomfortable silences like this. Mrs. Matthews had told Paige which restaurant they were going to. It was an okay place about 25 minutes away. They had been in the car for slightly more than five minutes, and to Paige, it felt like a lifetime. After five minutes, Mr. Matthews had to speak.

He had a hurried, whispered conversation with his wife. " You know, I don't know what to do with Paige. She's been skipping school, and she won't listen to a word we say", he said. Paige tried to tune out to what they were saying, just like she always did. It was really hard when they were saying those things about her.

"I don't know what to do any more", Mrs. Matthews was saying, "I don't know where we went wrong." Wrong? There was nothing wrong with Paige. She couldn't believe that her parents were saying this. It made her feel horrible, being talked about like this. They would never understand, not ever.

She covered her ears with her hands in an effort to physically block them out. It didn't work. She could still here them talk about what to do with their problem child:her. It went on for almost ten minutes. Paige wished that they would get to the restaurant so she could choke down her dinner in relative silence.

Dinner had always been an uncomfortable meal for Paige. When they went out, it wasn't much better. Her parents didn't try to talk to her, instead, they talked about her. It was like she wasn't here, or she was so stupid that she wouldn't understand. They spent most evening meals pointing out all of her faults, saying what was wrong with her. Paige didn't think there was anything wrong with her. Today, it seemed they were getting an early start to their Paige bashing.

And her parents wondered why she didn't talk to them! The both of them were horrible. Paige couldn't stand her faults being pointed out any longer. "Will you just stop it!", she yelled. Her parents turned to stare at her, shocked by her boldness. It shocked Paige a little too. The moment Mr. Matthews turned to Paige, his eyes left the road and the car swerved a bit.

This brought Paige to her senses for a moment. She was outraged. Parents weren't supposed to talk like that, especially when their child was around. Still, her furry was burning her up from the inside. "You're not my real parents", Paige muttered. Her parents didn't immediately react to this. She saw her father's jaw clench slightly, and a tear run down her mother's eye.

"What did you say?" Mr. Matthews said coldly.

His reaction only fueled Paige's anger. "You're not my real parents!" This time she yelled it, and her voice was much angrier. Immediately after she said it, a part of her regretted it. It wasn't true...not really. Mostly, it just felt good to make them as angry as they were making her.

Mr. Matthews turned around to yell at her again. What he was going to say, Paige would never know. Her father never saw the large truck turning the corner. There was a screeching of tires, then a scream.

She could hear a loud noise, lots of spinning. She felt dizzy. She would surely pass out. She couldn't see anything anymore...

The next thing Paige knew, she was lying face down on the sidewalk. It took her a moment to realize where she was. It took another moment for her to remember what had happened. She looked around for her parents, but didn't see them anywhere. "Mom? Dad?" she yelled. There was no answer.

She didn't recognize where she was. All she knew was that she was on cold grass. She couldn't see thier car, and she didn't understand what had happend. She found the road, and she felt a burning sensation in her throat like she was going to cry.

That's when she saw the fire. It was an enormous ball of fire, flying into the air. Paige realized that that was what used to be her car. If her parents weren't out here with her, she knew that they must still be in there. The tears started almost immediately, for she had realized what must have happened. They were gone. Her parents weren't coming back, and the last thing she had done was fight with them.

Paige couldn't stop looking at the fire, although she desperately wanted to. There was already a crowd forming around it, watching it consume the car, and take her parents away from her. There was no way anyone could no she had been in that car just moments ago. She looked herself over and saw a couple of bruises; nothing serious.

She stared at the fire, and felt that it wasn't just destroying her car, it was destroying her life. As it flickered upwards into the air, it took everything she had ever known with her. She may complain about her parents, in fact, she had been complaining about them a lot lately. But until that moment, Paige realized how good she had it. All of her life, she had had evertying give to her. Only when it was all taken away in a fiery instant like that did she realize how good it had been.

She didn't know why she was rooted to the spot. She had no idea why she couldn't look away from the fire. Secretly in the back of her mind she hoped that somehow they would walk out of the fire unscathed. Paige wished that they would walk to her, and hug her, and tell her everything would be okay. It was always her mother that would make everything better. Now that she couldn't have her, she wanted her mother more than anything.

Someone from a nearby house had grabbed a hose and put out the fire. She was too far away to see what they were doing, but she could hear them from there. "There's nothing we can do. They're dead", one man said.

Paige had suspected that her parents were dead the moment she saw the fire. Hearing it like this, said with such finality, was almost more than she could bear. Should she let her presence be known? Talk to the group of people who had tried to help? No, she wouldn't alret them to her presence. She didn't know why, but she didn't want them to see her.

Somehow, she couldn't bring herself to do it. It would make everything real. She didn't think she was ready to feel that. She had always proclaimed that she didn't need her parents, and she was too mature for them to do things for her. Now she needed them more than ever. For the first time in her life she was all alone, and she was terrified. She had no idea what she was going to do now. She was too young to be making such decisions.

She sat down on the grass, and tried to become invisible. She would have given anything to be invisible at that very moment. It was really bothering her that she wasn't crying. You were supposed to cry after something like this. After the initial tears had dried up, she felt nothing but numbness. Perhaps she was in shock. No, that wasn't it. After realizing that her parents weren't coming, Paige felt angry. Paige felt even angrier than she had been while fighting with her parents in the car.

She was angry with her parents. Not just angry, she was furious. How could they are leave her like this? How dare they! She was alone now, alone and helpless, and it was all thier fault! They left her needing them more than she had ever needed them before.She was so angry that they would do something like this. She knew it was stupid to feel like this, but she wasn't exactly thinking clearly. An ambulance had just arrived, and they were moving her parents' bodies. She supposed thety hadn't found out about her yet. She hoped they never would.

She couldn't see them clearly from where she was sitting, but it was something she could not bare to watch. That was one of the reasons she was not moving closer. Seeing her parents bodies would mean that they were really dead. Seeing actual corpses was something that you couldn't block out. You couldn't pretend that it wasn't real.

Paige's anger evaporated very quickly. She had always had a fiery temper, as her mother put it, but she never stayed angry very long. She quickly realized she was being stupid . However, her anger was replaced with something much worse. She felt an sense of unbearable guilt, and this time, she was positive she wasn't being stupid. She was very right to feel guilty, because this was all her fault.

If she hadn't been so sulky, her parents wouldn't have been so angry. If she had just kept her big mouth shut, the accident would never have happened. If she hadn't been such a horrible person, her parents would still be alive. Now talk about cruel that she would be alive, and they weren't. This would be her punishment, and she knew it.

Paige was a horrible daughter, and she had had parents who had given her anything. She should have died in that car, and her parents should have lived. That would make more sense. Paige was the one who had cause the accident, and she was the one who was such a horrible person. Her parents didn't deserve this. She had as good as killed the, and nothing anyone could say would change that. She now had to live with that guilt, because she had lived, and they had died.

She sat there for a long time. Exactly how long it was, she didn't know. Someone had already come to take the car away, and the crowd around it had disappeared. She was getting a little cold. She had to think of somewhere to go very quickly. She couldn't just sit here all night, although she wanted to.

Sitting in that spot, she almost believed that she was invisible. Peple passed on the distant sidewalk, and although she knew it wasn't true, she felt like they were staring at her. Someone would come looking for her eventually. Paige wanted no one to see her. She had basically killed her parents. If people saw her, they would know. She didn't want anyone to know. Paige knew she'd have to tell someone eventually, but she couldn't form the words.

There was a reason Paige was having difficulty willing herself to move. Without her parents, she had no where to go. Now that they were dead, she was all alone in the world. She might as well have died with them. Any way she looked at it, her parents' death was all her fault. She was a horrible person, and she had killed them.

How could she live with herself?

TBC...

Well, there's some dying...it was hard to write, so I hope i did it well. I dunno how soon I'll be able to update...so I've decided to give you the next five chapter titles, which live in my head, and are all mostly planned. Chapter 11: A New Beggining, Chapter 12: Sam, Chapter 13: Anniversaries, Chapter 14: Freebie, Chapter 15: I Saw Andy

Have fun guessing what those chapters are about! Hope i'll write them and you read them soon! A New Beggining and Sam are already written.