Thank you to everyone who reviewed. I really appreciate it.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. If I did I would be rich, which I'm not.
Piper immediately gathered Phoebe in her arms and just let her cry everything out. She wasn't surprised at Paige's reaction to having her back touched but the number of scars indicated that Paige was abused for a long time. She was worried about Paige waking up, but she was more worried about Paige having a nightmare and then waking up alone. Piper didn't want to do anything that might erode Paige's beginning trust in her sisters.
After several minutes of almost nonstop tears and sobs, Phoebe's breathing regulated to a pattern Piper recognized instantly. She had cried herself to sleep in Piper's arms. Piper slowly released Phoebe from her embrace, and gently laid her next to Paige. In her sleep, Phoebe instinctively moved closer to Paige as if to offer comfort even in slumber. Piper gave a small smile as she watched her two younger sisters sleep in peace.
The peace was shattered at two in the morning when Paige sat upright in a cold sweat. Piper, who had fallen asleep soon after Phoebe, felt the bed move with Paige's sudden movement and almost instantaneously sat up to provide Paige with the reassurance that she wasn't alone in the room. Paige initially fought against the arms that embraced her to soothe her, but under Piper's gentling, she eventually relaxed into the calm they provided.
"Want to talk about it?" asked Piper once she was sure Paige was awake and aware of her surroundings.
"Do I have to?" replied Paige sleepily, her body calming from her nightmare.
"No, sweetie. You don't have to. But it might make you feel better to get some of it off your chest." Piper then noticed that Paige's eyes were closed and her breathing was steady if not as clear as she would've liked it. She laid back down with Paige still in her arms and fell asleep wondering why bad things happened to good people.
The next morning, Paige awoke to find herself still in Piper's comforting embrace. She looked around and realized that she was the only one awake. Snuggling further into Piper's hold, she attempted to fall back asleep. However, Mr. Sandman evidently didn't feel the need to grace Paige with his presence as she lay awake for a half hour before deciding to go downstairs to get something to eat. She carefully slipped from Piper's arms trying to avoid waking her big sister. As she crept out the door however, not knowing the old house, she caused a loud creak from the floorboards underneath her feet. Phoebe, who was on the knife's edge between awake and asleep, immediately jumped onto the awake side and rose up to see her baby sister standing in the doorway with an 'oops' expression on her face.
"Morning, Paige. Where are you going at," yawning, she checked the clock, "eight o'clock in the morning?"
"Oh, you know. I was thinking food and a stop in the bathroom."
"I see. And why didn't you wake one of us up so we could help you?"
"Didn't want to bother you. Besides, Piper woke up with me earlier and you looked pretty tired, not to mention you were fast asleep." Paige gave a sheepish grin and a shrug.
"Paige, the deal we made had us taking care of you. Not you taking care of yourself. You should've woken us up to assist you. What if something had happened to you downstairs while we were up here sleeping? You could have gotten in to serious trouble."
While Phoebe was saying this, Paige was rethinking the deal she had made. Did she really want someone to look after her, someone to be dependent on? Anytime, she was dependent on someone, bad things had happened to her. Her being beaten when she was younger, the Matthews, her only decent foster parents, dying when she was a teenager; all had happened when she relied on someone else. Results from the loss of her independence, from her willingness to let people into her life had led to her drinking problem. If her sisters followed the pattern people had followed with her Paige's entire life, she would lose them and then she would be lost as well with the loss of her true family.
"You know what. I don't have to put up with your overwhelming concern," said Paige harshly. "I don't need or want you guys looking after me. I'm outta here." Paige quickly did a quick about face and rapidly strode out of the room. She headed downstairs with full intention of getting to her car and going back to her apartment or, better yet, some small hotel where her sisters couldn't find her. Keeping in mind that they had found her before by scrying, Paige made a quick stop in the attic to find a spell in the Book of Shadows to hide herself from tracking and locating spells. She decided to worry about Leo sensing her when he came back. Finding the appropriate spell, she wrote it down and orbed to her car still next in the parking lot by the beach. All the orbing was causing Paige to feel sicker than she had at the Manor, but she shook it off as a onetime thing from the orbing. She cast the spell and got into the car deciding to go to a little bed and breakfast she had discovered near Bodega Bay, about three hours north of San Francisco. She drove off heading north on 101.
Phoebe sat in shock on the bed after Paige's outburst. She had thought that they were making progress with Paige and gaining her trust, but apparently she was wrong. Unfortunately, Piper chose that moment to wake up and look around the room in search of Paige. Seeing her one sister awake and the other one missing in action, Piper decided to find out what was going on. She was receiving a very unsettling vibe from Phoebe and decided to see what was causing it.
"Pheebs," she asked carefully seeing the expression on her sister's face. "Where's Paige?"
"I … I," Phoebe didn't want to say it. "I don't know."
Piper's expression became guarded. "You don't know like she wasn't here when you woke up or you don't know because she went somewhere without telling you?" she questioned.
"It's more like I woke up while she was leaving the room and we had a chat and then she left without telling me where she was going." Phoebe cowered in fear of the outburst that was sure to come from her statement.
"Left the room or left the house?" was the quiet question.
"The house," was the whispered reply. At this simple answer, Piper officially lost it.
"She left the house again! And you let her go? Phoebe, what on Earth were you thinking? Our sister is physically ill and currently somewhat mentally and emotionally unstable! Why didn't you stop her? What did you two say in the 'chat' you had that caused her to leave?" yelled Piper.
Phoebe would have been afraid for her life at that moment except that she knew that Piper was just acting like Prue would've if the same thing had happened to her. Piper was just worried about Paige and trying to protect her.
Phoebe gave a quick recap of events for Piper's sake. "She was walking out the door, to go downstairs she said, when the floor creaked and I fully woke up. I then asked her what she was doing. She replied and I then asked why she didn't wake one of us up to help her like in our deal. She said she didn't want to bother us and I then gave a small lecture on how she doesn't bother us and how we were going to take care of her. The thing is during the lecture her face changed, hardened. At the end she said she didn't need us and then she walked out the door to who knows where. Piper, she said she didn't want us to look after her and help her. I thought we were making progress but she … Paige …."
With the newest revelation, Phoebe fell apart much like the night before. Piper knew that Phoebe had done just what she would have so her arms immediately encircled her sister and she started comforting her. "It's okay Pheebs. We'll find her. We have to." While Piper was saying this though, she was wondering what had caused the turnaround in her youngest sister. She had thought Paige was beginning to open up to them and that she wasn't going to run again.
Phoebe eventually calmed down and she and Piper quickly went to the attic to try scrying for their headstrong sister.