Disclaimer: kids other than Wyatt are mine. Anything off the show is obviously not mine.

Authors note: Well, as is painfully obvious by the huge lack of updates on anything by me, I have been gripped by a long bout of writers block which is absolutely refusing to go away and so is meaning I am writing very little fanfic at all. It is incredibly annoying, and I apologise to anyone who actually wants to know where this story is going. Anyway, I'm not even going to bother saying I'll update faster the next time, because every time I do, the time between updates just gets longer and longer.

CHAPTER 7

Paige sighed and lowered the crystal down again. She looked over at Jordyn, and her heart nearly broke at the sight of the girl's obvious distress. Her eyes were red from where she had been rubbing them in an attempt to stop herself falling asleep, and also – Paige suspected – because she had been trying not to burst into tears of frustration.

Paige really, really got that. She could totally emphasise with the girl because she was sharing very similar feelings. Even though the two missing people weren't her family as she knew them, they would be someday. The people they were scrying for would in the future be her husband and child.

"We'll find them Jordi," she murmured, trying to sound comforting, "and you know they'll be trying to get back to us too."

Jordyn nodded. "Yeah Ky, I know," she said, "But it doesn't make it hurt any less. I want them back, safe." She paused, sniffling a little, "Why does it have to be us that all this stuff happens to? It isn't fair – no-one else ever has to deal with their family getting kidnapped by evil things!"

Paige had no answer to that really. The only one she knew was 'because it's what we do', but that just didn't seem to cut it this time. And it surely wouldn't do anything to help Jordyn's distress. That just wasn't the sort of thing you wanted to be told when you were looking for an answer to that question.

"Well, at least life as a Halliwell is never boring," she quipped, then winced at how weak that sounded.

But it still brought a slight, sardonic smile to Jordyn's lips. "Yeah, you can say that again."

Paige sighed and lifted the crystal above the map again. She couldn't get a position for any of the kids, or Jesse. They hadn't yet tried scrying for Piper and Phoebe, but she had a sinking feeling that they would not be locatable either. It was as if the entire family, bar her and Jordyn, had vanished off the face of the earth.

Which, it was entirely possible, they had. The problem with scrying was that it only allowed them to scry that portrayed by the map. It was entirely possible that everyone was in the Underworld.

"I don't think scrying is going to get us anywhere," Paige sighed glumly. If only they had access to something that could not only pin-point the location on Earth of the people they were scrying for, but also which covered all the places not pictured on any map.

An idea suddenly hit her. Sure, the Underworld had never been shown on any map made by humans. But, was it possible that the demons had their own cartographers? Wouldn't demons sometimes need to know where places were? Yes, they could just shimmer around, but wouldn't they need to have some idea of where they were headed?

"Hey Jordi, do you remember anyone ever mentioning anything about a map of the underworld?" Paige questioned casually. It was a long shot, but from her experiences long shots were often the ones that paid out in the end.

Jordyn shot her a strange look. Again. "Um...you mean the one that lives in the box in the corner?" she asked, puzzled. Her twin sure was being odd recently. She seemed to have forgotten things that the two of them had known about since they were in diapers. Didn't she remember that the map of the Underworld was what they had been using for years to locate demons?

"Oh...yeah...that one," Paige mumbled in what she hoped was a sheepish manner. "Well, how about we give that a try since they obviously aren't around up here?"

"Or, we could just try sensing them first," Jordyn suggested sensibly. She so didn't get why Kyra was being so weird, and going about looking for their family in a way that was, quite frankly, old-fashioned. It was how she imagined her aunts might have searched for people in the days before the Underworld map, when Uncle Leo had been the only one around who could sense people. Jordi had heard all the stories from back then and knew that, when Uncle Leo had been off doing Whitelighter stuff, it had left them without that important link to each other. It seemed like Ky had completely forgotten about that ability too. She was starting to wonder whether something had happened to her sister, to make her forget all these little things that were always useful. She had been following Ky's lead in the search because, hey, that was the way things always went. But with Kyra being so weird, maybe it was time for her to try and take over.

Paige still wasn't so sure about this sensing thing. Presumably it was something like the Whitelighter ability to sense charges, but attached to family members instead. But Jordyn and Kyra were only a quarter Whitelighter. Surely the ability couldn't be that strong in them, since Paige herself barely ever felt that link.

"Well, okay," she said dubiously. "How about you try sensing, and I'll try the map? That way we're not wasting our time both using the same method."

Paige thought that sounded pretty logical. Plus it meant she didn't need to figure out how to use that particular ability just now. She couldn't exactly tell Jordyn that she didn't know how to do something that Kyra had, presumably, been using most her life.

Jordyn felt a slight surge of relief. Now that was the usual, logical Kyra speaking. Perhaps this weirdness on her twin's part was just because she was worried about their family. Kyra was being sensible again, thank god. Jordi just hoped she would stay that way. Without Wyatt or the Aunts around, they had to take charge on their own. That was scary enough as it way. If she didn't have her sister's help in this, they had no hope.

Author's note: Well, I've got the plot moving on this story a little again, so hopefully my muses have decided to give me some ideas for fanfic again. I really hope to be able to update with a little more regularity, but I can't say I will. It all depends on if I get ideas for originals, my other fics, or this one.