A/N: So, I haven't given up on this fic! I took a break from it to finish off my other, much longer, Paily story first. I've also stopped watching PLL and I'm finding it a little hard to write for the fandom at the moment. I have every intention of finishing this off though! This is a short chapter, but writing it has drawn me back in to the story, so hopefully I'll have a much longer chapter up soon.

Paige woke with a start. It was light out, and she was still wearing the clothes she'd fallen asleep. She'd managed to pull on a pair of shorts after Spencer had cut her jeans off, but she'd pretty much passed out straight after that. Paige winced as she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She'd slept on her side, and the deep gashes in her calf had opened with a vengeance. Blood stained the once pure white bandages that Spencer had applied for her. Some of it had even seeped out on to the sheets.

She got out of bed with a groan, testing just how much weight she could stand to put on the injured limb. The curtains were drawn, blanketing the room in an inky blackness that was almost impenetrable. Paige stubbed her toe on the dresser on the way to the door. She had recited every cuss word she had ever learned by the time she reached for the doorknob.

Limping at a snail's pace down the stairs, she was suffering just as much with the aching in her ribs. The injured teen made her way through the living room and in to the kitchen. She was too absorbed in the pain to remember there was an extra member of the family in the house. She stopped short of the door as she spotted a man standing by the kitchen sink. He was facing away from her, staring out at the back yard. A solid lump rose up in Paige's throat. She took stock of her biological father, hardly impressed by what she saw.

Nobody could ever replace her dad. In her eyes, Nick McCullers was, and always would be, her father. This other man was a little shorter than Nick, and broader in the shoulder. His hair was the same colour as Spencer's, though speckled with grey on the sides. Even with his back to her, Paige recognised the man from the night before. She swallowed hard, waiting for him to turn around and face her.

"I guess I made quite the impression last night." Peter Hastings' voice was softer than it had been the previous night. When he'd been yelling at her. He turned from the window, offering her a patient smile. Despite his pleasant expression, his posture was defensive. Peter stood with his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the counter top. "You were asleep when I got back last night. I went up to check on you, I could hardly believe it... It's funny how things turn out."

"Hilarious." Paige replied dryly. Picking up where she'd left off, she carried on limping towards the refrigerator. Helping herself to a can of diet coke, she held it against her forehead; she was burning up. The aching in her ribs and the stabbing pain in her leg had been joined by a new friend – a persistent pounding in her head. She had also started to feel nauseous. Though, that could have been to do with the revelation of just who her father was. Paige was less than impressed by the source of half of her chromosomes.

"Are you okay?" Peter frowned and took a step towards her as he took in her pallor. The teenager was pale and sweating. The soda can dropped from her hands and rolled across the floor. Paige almost followed it as her legs gave way underneath her. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head as it slammed down against the side of the counter. She heard Peter calling her name as she went down, only it wasn't her name. Not really. "Kathryn!"

"What?" Paige demanded as the young doctor treating her gave her yet another sidelong glance. He'd been sneaking glances at her for most of the exam. It was unnerving, to say the least, and Paige had never been one to bite her tongue.

"Sorry." The man apologized sheepishly, not even trying to deny the fact that he was staring at her. He was cute, in a stuffy kind of way. His British accent was clipped and sharp, with no hint of a regional dialect. The doctor obviously came from money. He'd get along just fine with the Hastings.

"It's just… You're…" He faltered, trying to choose his words carefully. Paige decided to put him out of his misery.
"The kid who was abducted? Twice." She managed a crude smile, making the doctor snort with laughter.

"Fair play." He nodded, wearing a boyish grin that had probably broken a lot of hearts over the years. "I was actually going to say you're a Hastings. This is, uh… a little awkward. There's a reason your father looked like he was ready to punch me when I walked in to the room earlier."

"He's not my father." Paige snarled defensively. She made the mistake of scrunching her face up and popping one of the sutures that the doctor had just put in above her eye.

Paige had struck her head on the side of the kitchen counter when she'd passed out. Despite insisting she was fine, when she eventually came back around, neither Perter no Veronica had listened. They'd rushed her off to the Emergency Room at Rosewood General Hospital.

Thinking back on it, Peter had looked like he'd been ready to rearrange the young doctor's face for him when he'd first walked in to the room. Paige had kicked up a fuss about the Hastings staying in the room with her, insisting she wasn't some five year old who needed to be chaperoned. She'd been so busy kicking them out that she hadn't caught the doctor's name.

"I'm Wren, by the way. Wren Kingston. And I can't imagine how hard this must be for you." Putting down the suture kit and peeling off his latex gloves, he offered his hand out to her.

Paige shook it warily. "If this is where you try and give me a lollipop, I'm walking." Wren laughed at that. Shaking his head, he held his hands out in front of him.
"It's nothing like that. I swear. I was engaged to your sister."

"Spencer?" Paige frowned. She couldn't imagine Veronica letting her seventeen year old daughter get engaged to someone so much older. Wren chuckled again, his boyish smile seemingly etched permanently on to his face.
"No. God no. Uh, Melissa. I was engaged to Melissa."

"Oh. I haven't met her yet. She's supposed to be flying back from London or something." Paige shrugged. "It's weird. All my life I thought I was an only child, and now… I've got sisters coming out of the woodwork." She let out a huff of air, rubbing at one of the stitches that was placed over her eyebrow. It was really starting to piss her off.

"So, what happened with you and Melissa? I take it things didn't end well?" Wren finally lost his easygoing smile at the question.
"Ah, no. No they didn't…" The young doctor had his eyes glued to the tablet in his hand as he read through Paige's medical history.

"The stitches should dissolve in a few weeks. You have signs of a mild concussion, but nothing too serious. I'd prescribe Tylenol and plenty of rest. I uh, I looked at your file. It seems you haven't filled your prescription this month. Do you need me to write you one?"

"It slipped my mind." Paige admitted with a shrug. "My Dad usually takes care of that stuff. I have some Haldol left over. I need more Zoloft though."

"Not a problem." Wren pulled his prescription pad out of the pocket of his white coat. He wrote out a script and handed it over. "That's us all done here, but if you need anything, anything at all, Spencer has my number."
"Thanks, Doc."

"Paige. How are you feeling?" Veronica fussed over her younger daughter the second she walked out of the exam room. Peter stood at a distance, looking aloof.

"Fine." Answered Paige, rubbing absently at her butterfly stitches. She'd made sure to tuck the prescription Wren had given her in to the back pocket of her jeans. "I probably did more damage to your counter."

"Don't worry about that." Veronica shushed her. She placed an arm around the teenager's shoulders, holding her almost gingerly. Paige tried not to flinch at her touch. She already felt bad about making Veronica worry.

The older woman had been in a near panic when she'd walked in to the kitchen and found Paige passed out on the floor; bleeding profusely from the cut to her head.

Peter, however, didn't share her concern. "Veronica, dear, are you okay to drive yourselves home? I've got a meeting with a client in half an hour." Glancing down at his watch, Peter Hastings could barely bring himself to look at his youngest daughter. For Paige, the feeling was mutual.

"Okay, Mom. Sure, I'll be straight home after class." Spencer hung up the phone to her mom and let out a frustrated sigh. "There goes my night with Toby."

"What's up?" Emily looked up from her own phone to ask what was wrong.
"Paige wiped out on her bike last night. Now she's got a concussion and Mom wants me home to babysit. I was supposed to be going over to Toby's tonight. What with everything that's been going on lately, we haven't really had that much time alone together."

"I could go check on her? If you wanted?" Emily suggested. "I don't mind."
"Don't you have plans with Samara?"
"She's working tonight." Emily answered quickly. A little too quickly.

Spencer knew her friend well enough to know when something was amiss. "Is everything okay with you two?"
"Yeah. Everything is great." Emily managed a weak smile. "It's just… this time of year… With Maya's birthday coming up…" She didn't need to finish. Spencer leaned in for a hug, silently consoling her. They didn't talk about Maya that much anymore; it was just too hard for Emily.

After their last class of the day, Emily and Spencer both got in to their respective cars, with Emily tailing Spencer all the way back to the Hastings' ranch. Walking in through the back door, the girls found Paige in the kitchen, raiding the fridge.

"Nice stitches, Frankenstein." Spencer teased. Despite not having known her twin for very long, they had quickly built an easy kind of rapport.
"That makes no sense. Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster. Ergo, no stitches." Paige replied in a dry tone, earning an eye roll from Spencer.

"There's no denying you two are related." Emily chuckled at the two sisters, drawing Paige's attention. Her face lit up at the sight of Emily.
"Hi, Em."
"Hey."

"I need to go get changed. Toby's picking me in twenty minutes." Spencer announced, though the other two girls barely seemed to notice her leaving.

"How's your head?" Emily asked once they were alone. "Spence said you wiped out on your bike?"
"Yeah…" Paige rubbed awkwardly at her forehead. "Long story. I'm fine though. I blacked out for a second and hit my head. Everyone just totally overreacted."

"Well, I'm glad you're okay." Emily smiled sheepishly at the other girl. "Um, do you have any plans tonight? Spencer's going over to Toby's and I figured we could hang out for a bit?"

"Veronica asked her to babysit me, didn't she?" Paige saw right through Emily's innocent act. "And Spence has plans, so she passed the buck on to you. Am I right?"
"No. No, Spence didn't… I… I volunteered." Emily answered honestly. "You do owe me a coffee."

"Two." Paige corrected her with a grin. "And a muffin... How about I just make you dinner, and we'll call it even?"