Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Chapter 23 The Untitled One When Paige Matthews Halliwell stirred awake from her slumber, her eyelids would hardly open. It felt like they were glued shut, her throat was so dry she thought the skin inside was cracked. How long her body had been soulless she didn't know , but simply by the feel of her own body it felt like it had been years. Momentary fear struck her as she tried to call for her sisters. What if she had been like this for years? Who knew how time worked in Celestin, for all she knew a minute there could be an hour here. And hadn't she woken up there? What if she had been asleep in Limbo for days? All of this was getting to her, and once again she tried to call for her sisters. The only sound she managed to make was was a throaty croak, and she was even struggling to get out of her bed. One option came to mind , and though she knew she would later regret it, she used all her control of her body and rolled out of bed. She landed on the floor, face down, with a loud thud. "Auw..." She uttered weakly as footsteps could be heard rushing up the stairs. The door slammed open seconds later and she heard the distinctive voices of her two older sisters. "Paige!" The two screeched and rushed to her side. It took both of them to lift her off the floor and into a standing position. Paige shut her eyes tightly and muttered something about how much her nose hurt. When she opened them again she saw both her sisters standing right in front of her, tears streaming down their cheeks. Before she knew what happened they threw their arms around her, staining her own tear-wet cheeks with pink lipstick kisses. "Chris!" Piper shouted all of a sudden, a name Paige was not familiar with, and through a beautiful stream of blue-white lights appeared a tall, rather handsome brown haired boy in his early twenties. Paige broke form her sisters hug, taking a few steps back to examine her sisters new acquaintance. Of course, she realised he was a White Lighter, but the thought of him being their White Lighter hadn't even crossed her mind. Catching the look of confusion on her little sisters face Phoebe took it upon herself to explain. "Paige," she said slowly, "this is our new White Lighter, Chris." "New White Lighter!" Paige demanded. How long had she been away, it must have been quite a while for them to get a new White Lighter. Did this mean something was wrong between Piper and Leo? Where was Leo anyway, further more, where was Wyatt? Piper never let him out of her sight. "How long?" She whispered the question, knowing her sisters would understand that she meant 'how long have I been asleep?', all while she was fearing what the answer might be. Piper saw the look of distress on her face and answered in her most motherly tone, placing a hand around her shoulders. "A month and a half." Paige felt the air get stuck in her lungs, in the most literal sense of the phrase. Seconds later all she saw was darkness... ---- "Are you okay?" An unfamilliar voice asked from above her. She groaned, shifted a few times and realised she was on her bed again. Getting her eyes into focus she realised the voice belonged to the White Lighter, Chris. 'Your White Lighter...' She thought to herself as she slowly sat up in her bed. Her sisters were sitting on the wodden chest under the window, eyeing her nervously. "Are you okay?" Chris repeated, stepping back form the edge of her bed. "Yeah...yeah, I'm fine..." She muttered, getting up and finally managingto stand up without support. "Sweetie, what happened?" Phoebe asked, getting up as well. "I...I panicked I guess." Paige said silently. 'A month and a half?' Her mind repeated silently. She had been lying there for a month and a half! Just the thought off those words made her feel like her world was crashing down around her. "Let's get you something to drink." Piper said, more like a command than a suggestion, her motherly instincts kicking in again as she noticed how dry her little sisters voice sounded. Paige didn't even protest as Piper instructed Chris to orb her into the kitchen. Usualy she would argue, claiming she was perfectly able to go down to the kitchen herself but in her current state...No, right now she really didn't mind. The kitchen was illuminated by the sunshine outside, the fresh colours both outside and inside the Manor made her feel just a little better than she had when she woke up. Baby Wyatt was sitting in his child-seat just a cross from her, Piper despretly trying to get him to open his mouth so she could feed him the green goo some people called baby food. Paige, by the look of the stuff, fully understood why he refused to eat it. After having swallowed three tall glasses of water, which Phoebe had basically forced down her throat, she finally voiced a question that had been nagging in the back of her mind. "So, where's Leo?" There was a long silence, during which Chris looked to Phoebe, Phoebe to Piper, Piper to Chris and the cycle repeated it self quite a few times. "Well he's..err...He's.." Chris didn't seem to know how to explain, but contrary to Phoebe and Piper he actually mangaed to speak when his mouth opened and closed. "Gabriel told me Leo made all the 'nescecarry arrengments' to preserve my body. That means that he was here while I was in Celestin." Piper looked away, out of the window. Something had obviously happend between them, because she didn't seem to want to talk about it. "We'll explain later, sweetie." Phoebe promised her, "So, Celestin," she said, trying to lighten the mood, "what's it like?" At first Paige was shocked that she would even ask, but then thankful, because she suddenly remembered her meeting with their other sister, Prue. "It's beautiful." she said breathlessly. "And I met mom and grams there...and, and I met Prue." her two sisters collectivly gasped and stared at her. "She told me to tell you that...that she loved you." she closed her eyes, feeling tears burn them. She was begining to feel nausius, like at any moment she would vomit. ---- Days had passed since Paige's awakening, and the sum of these almost four days was; her favourite food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, absolute controll over the TV, oh, and 3 seperate incidents of being showered in lower-level demons guts. Yeah, she was definetly back on Charmed One duty, but to any outsider that asked, she was now Patricia Halliwell, third cousin. Phoebe had quit her job at Hogwarts, and was now working at the Bay View Mirror (?) as an advice culmist for the growingly succesful cullumn 'Ask Phoebe'. She had brought back with her all of Paige's Hogwarts' stuff, which was safely stored in the wodden chest under Paige's bedroom window. Paige had not yet gone near the chest, she had actually gone as far as to have Chris orb it into the attic. The mere thought of Hogwarts made her guts wrench and her eyes sting with tears. She never realised just how much she cared about Draco until now. At her normal school she had always been considered a bit of a flirt, hell, she used to considered herself a bit of a flirt and had never wanted a 'serious' relationship, but now... Now all she wanted was to be back with him and her friends. All her two sisters could do was helplessly look on as she absentmindedly kept switching TV stations. "Maybe we should take her out? Take her to P3?" Phoebe said in a hushed voice as she and Piper entered the kitchen alone. "Maybe it would help get her mind off of...everything, really." "Oh yes." Piper said, sarcasm already dripping from her words. "Let's take an underaged, heartbroken teen to a bar full of men and alchohol. That'll solve the problem!" She shook her head as she poured two cups of coffee. "Look, it's easy for you to say, you're not feeling what she's feeling!" Phoebe hissed. That was another thing that had happened during Paiges time being M.I.A., Phoebe had gotten a new power. Empathy, the ability to feel what others around her were feeling. "I'm surprised she's not crying every minute of the day, I'm certainly tempted to whenever I'm around her!" "That reminds me, we need to get those ingredients for the immunity potion. At least we'll be putting one sister out of her misery!" Piper said, slamming the cupboard close after putting back the coffeebeans. "Hey, don't take your anger towards Leo out on me, or the cupboard for that matter!" ---- Paige, acting like most teens did when adults argued in the other room, turned up the volume on the TV to the max. The argument, she knew, was rooted in Piper's anger towards Leo and Phoebes newly developed empathic powers. During her days back, she had gotten the low down on how the Elders had been attacked and Leo himslef had become an Elder. It wasn't until Wyatt started crying that the arguing stopped and Paige put the TV on mute. All three Halliwells rushed to the winter garden to comfort him and try to stop the high-pitched wails. Half-way there Paige stoppped, convinced that she had seen something at the bottom of the stairs and that it had vanished in what seemed like a shimmer. She hurried to her sisters' side and told them in a quiet, yet rushed voice about what she had seen. It seemed she had been right, for only moments later someone shimmered into the winter garden, hand already raised to attack. In the seconds before he attacked Phoebe had placed herself protectivly in front of Wyatt and Paige was frozen in place. Piper blew him up, but the green-skined demons fire-ball had not. It was only because of Phoebe jumping through the air, sending both herself and her younger sister to the ground, that Paige had not been hit. Instead there was a large burn in the tapestry right behind them, and everyone was covered in a sticky blue substance. Wyatt was the exception, protected in his own blue-white bubble of a force-field. "Paige!" Piper said in a semi-annoyed voice, "what is wrong with you! This is the fourth demon attack where you've frozen like that!" Unlike Piper, Phoebe could feel the fear that still ran through Paiges mind, body and soul. Before anyone could utter another word, Paige got up from the floor an rushed to her room. Piper eyed Phoebe questioningly. "She's still afraid, Piper. She's scared and hurt, and on top of that she's absoulutley heartbroken!" Phoebe was on the verge of tears, still channeling Paiges immensly strong emotions. "Why can't you understand that her heart is just as wounded over Draco as yours is over Leo!" And with that, Phoebe stormed out of the room leaving an even more confused and astonished Piper. They needed to make that immunity potion for Phoebe, and fast. And they desperatly needed to help Paige. ----------- AN: It lives!... well, for now at least... It's taken a while, but the next chapter is half-way done so, maybe I'll update in the next two weeks or something... Oh, and thanks to CharmedSisters...Your review made me finally post this after having it ready for almost a 3 weeks.