Finding Home

Chapter Nineteen-Paige

**Trigger Warning: This episode contains abortion and pregnancy loss. There is a summary of the important events of the chapter at the bottom. Please scroll down to get the SparkNotes.**

The next morning Paige went on her usual run. She thought about what her mother had said the night before. It was true she had run away. She wanted to find something more and thought that it existed in the human world. She meant what she said, she was happy enough. At least she was until she came home. Until she saw him. She had forgotten how good it was to be with him. Over the years she had forgotten how much joy and happiness she felt just to be with him. When he left, her heart broke, she pulled herself back together and she thought she got back to her pre-heartbreak happiness. She thought she was happy. But being back here, with him, she realized just how much she lacked in London.

Her mother was right, she had raised her better than this. As terrified as she was, she wasn't one to run from a challenge. The torture of her upbringing, yes, but not a challenge. Nathan had told her there might be away, and she would give it a try. If it doesn't work she'll go back to London and live happy enough. But if it does work, well, she'll cross that bridge when she comes to it.

She didn't bother stopping at home. Instead she ran straight to the packhouse. Nathan should be in his office by now. Not stopping at the front desk she made a beeline straight to him, she knew if she didn't she would back out. When she got there, she found the door open just a crack. Figuring if it was an important meeting the door would have been all the way closed, she pushed it open and saw that it was just Nathan and his officers. Nathan and Patrick stood when she entered, Allen who was sitting on the couch just looked at her with a bemused expression.

"Alright fine." She said, without any preamble. "We can give it a try. But you only get a week."

"Paige that might not be enough time." Nathan said

"Tough. I have to be back in London a week from today. I'm not putting my life on hold for this."

"Okay, I guess we'll start right away then. Do you want to start this minute, or...?"

"No, I'm going home to shower and change. I'll be back in two hours." And with that she left his office. She was in it now.

At home she quickly showered and changed. She had a video call with her PhD advisor. They we're discussing her progress. Her paper was ready for publication and all that was left was the presentation and defense with the committee. She was so close. Her advisor wanted to schedule a time right then but she put him off. She didn't know what the future held. She was going to get her doctorate, there was no way she wasn't, but she had to find some sort of conclusion here first.

Two hours later, she was back at the pack house. Nathan wanted her to be seen by a doctor. They wanted to know if there was anything that could be keeping her wolf away. Since they didn't know if it was physiological or magical they wanted to cover all their bases and have her checked out by both a doctor and a healer. A doctor focused solely on the science, the healer involved the more mystical elements. Luckily they were able to find a team that works together.

They waited in Nathan's private study for them. It had an examination table from when Nathan's mother was sick. There was a slight knock at the door before it opened. Patrick walked in with two women. "Alpha, this is Doctor Lawrence and Healer Hartland." They both greeted the Alpha and then looked at Paige.

The doctor took a step toward her, "This must be our patient." She held her hand out. Paige shook it. Healer Hartland stepped up and shook her hand as well. Where the doctor was all stiff formality and professionalism the healer was much more openness and warmth.

"I must say," the doctor started, "This is something I've never heard of before. I've studied both human and wolf physiology and I have never heard of a dormant wolf."

"Is it something you can treat?" Nathan asked nervously.

"We'll definitely give it our best shot." The healer said warmly.

"We'll start with the basics and go from there."

Patrick and Allen left the room and the doctor and healer proceeded to poke and prod Paige taking all of her vitals. She was expecting that and had accepted it would be apart of this visit. What she hadn't expected was all the background information they wanted. It went beyond a normal medical history. They wanted every scraped knee, every cold, every broken bone (Paige had gotten a lot of those growing up). They wanted to know every time Paige cried, every heartbreak, every stressor. When they got to puberty it became even more detailed. They asked about every time she visited a doctor in the human world. When she asked why it was important the doctor told her that human treatments can sometimes be ineffective or even interfere with werewolf physiology. Though Paige was tried of it she continued on, answering all of their questions calmly. Then came the particularly tough questions.

"Have you ever been pregnant?" Doctor Lawrence asked. That was the one question Paige didn't want to answer.

"Is that entirely relevant?" She asked trying to dodge the question.

"We don't know what's relevant. We've never seen anything like this."

Paige didn't say anything for a moment before taking a big breath. "I've knowingly been pregnant twice, never carried to term."

"When we're these pregnancies and when did they end?"

Paige cleared her throat, "The first was seven years ago. I had a suction aspiration done at eight weeks." Paige stopped, unsure of how to go on.

"Suction Aspiration? They didn't use medication?"

"I told them of my mixed lineage and they wanted to be sure it would come away entirely. They were wary of my wolf genes interfering."

"I see. Where did you have the procedure?"

"At a Planned Parenthood in Boston."

"And the other?" The doctor asked. She was taking down Paige's information and wasn't looking at her. "The other?" She asked again when Paige didn't say anything.

Paige was barely holding it together. "I had," her voice cracked, she cleared her throat and tried to speak with a forced detachment. If she could just speak of it in medical terms she'd be able to get through it. "I had an incomplete miscarriage at 15 weeks. It resulted in an emergency D&C to extract remaining tissue and stop the hemorrhaging."

"And when and where was this?"

Paige took another deep breath, this time to hold back tears. "St. Thomas's hospital in London. Four years, six months, thirteen days."

Nathan, who had mostly been quiet through all the tests and questions looked up at her, "Paige." The heartbreak in his voice was enough to put her over the edge. Silent tears started rolling down her cheeks.

The doctor started to ask another question but the healer interrupted her, "I think we have everything we need for right now."

The doctor looked at her companion and started to protest, "We have more questions-"

"Sonya." The healer cut her off. The doctor looked around at Paige and Nathan.

"Oh. Right, uh, we'll call if we have more questions. Thank you."

They made a hurried exit. Paige and Nathan were alone. She knew he was staring at her but she couldn't meet his eyes. "Was it," he started, "Was the baby-" his voice broke, "was the baby mine?"

Summary

Paige agreed to try and wake her wolf but gave Nathan a deadline of one week. She had a video conference with her PhD advisor who said she was ready to publish and wanted to schedule her defense, she put him off because she wasn't sure of what the next week would bring. She wanted some type of closure before leaving. Paige meets with a doctor-healer team, since they are unsure if the cause of her wolf's dormancy is physiological or mystical. She informs them that she had an abortion while in Boston, and a miscarriage in London. The chapter ends with Nathan asking if the baby was his.