"Prue. Come on, wake up sweetie." Piper's voice echoed in the shadow of my thoughts as I was pulled from the most peaceful place where I was sitting with Andy. My tears had been replaced by the most agonizing pain in my head as my eyes fluttered open. "Come on honey, we need your help."
"Easy, easy, easy," Phoebe warned me from getting up too quickly; my hand went to the back of my of my head as they helped me stand on my feet.
"Where's Andy?" I asked right off the bat as the dream fluttered back to me, although things were still a little blurry with what was said during that time.
"Prue, something terrible happened," Phoebe stated, gesturing over to where Andy's body was covered with a blue blanket.
"It all happened so fast, Prue." Piper filled me in with a saddened tone. Happened so fast? I didn't remember any of it. I felt so woozy, my legs weren't able to hold me up any longer. Thankfully, my sisters were holding me up like they usually did. "He ran to the door when Rodriguez attacked. He was trying to save us."
"And he'll succeed. Where's the Book of Shadows?"
"Uh, it's right here." Phoebe got up and grabbed the book from the table as Piper continued to sit next to me. I tried my hardest to not let my thoughts get the best of me because there would always be time to let out all my emotions when I was alone. "Why?"
"Where's the spell you saw to accelerate time?" I brushed my short locks behind my ear as Phoebe started looking through the Book of Shadows.
"What are you doing?" Rodriguez asked, growing rather nervous in our doing, yet we continued to ignore his questioning.
"There." Phoebe pointed to the spell we needed and I started to feel a twitch of vengeance stirring inside me. This warlock was going to pay for what he did for Andy. For his sake, after I said this spell, I hope I never saw Rodriguez again; he had clearly messed with the wrong witches.
"What's going on?" Rodriguez grew even more panicked, the longer he was tied to that the chair. We continued to ignore him as we talked.
"We don't want to accelerate time. We want to reverse it." Piper tried to convince me as Phoebe and I read through the spell to make sure we knew all the words.
"No, we don't trust me. The only chance we have to get rid of Tempus is to do this by breaking through the time loop, okay?"
"But if we break through the time loop, we won't be able to save Andy," Phoebe argued, not knowing what I knew about Andy sending me back to earth and him staying in heaven. Despite how shattered my heartfelt, I knew this is what we had to do. We couldn't keep fighting Tempus or Rodriguez through an infinite time loop. No, this had to end now before anyone else died in the process.
"I know," I stated, knowing that it was a huge sacrifice not being able to bring Andy back, or that the weight of that statement was a little too much to try and process at the moment. I was basically killing Andy by vanquishing Rodriguez and breaking the time loop.
"Prue, are you sure?" Piper asked me again as we all stood with the book in hand. This was our time once and for all to break this time loop and vanquish him for good.
"No, I'm not." I took one glance over at Rodriguez before looking back at the book. "Winds of time, gather round. Give me wings to speed my way."
"Wait a minute." Rodriguez pleaded as I continued reading the spell, but I couldn't stop. No, I wouldn't stop reading it. I poured all my anger into the fact that he had ruthlessly killed the love of my life. He didn't deserve to live a second more.
"Rush me on my journey forward. Let tomorrow be today."
"What's happening?" Rodriguez asked as the hands on the grandmother clock began spinning until both hands faced twelve and chimed loudly.
"Prue," Piper called out to me as I stepped towards Rodriguez. We had managed to stop Tempus but there was still the question of what to do with Rodriguez now that he was tied up. We couldn't give him to the police or he might do the same thing to someone else.
"You know what? Just untie him." I told my sister, no longer feeling the energy to deal with him. A feeling of enthusiasm may just give him the spark to vanquish him once and for all.
"What?" Phoebe asked in confusion as she and Piper took a few steps toward me.
"He'll kill us," Piper added, trying to make me see her reasoning to why this was all a bad idea. Somewhere inside I could see why they thought this was a bad idea, but they would soon know I had a plan once and for all to vanquish him.
"No, he won't. He doesn't have the power to kill us, otherwise, he wouldn't have needed Tempus."
"I will not untie, Prue." Phoebe refused, so I did a little magic and the ropes slipped off and his cuffs came undone.
"Get out of here before I change my mind."
"You stupid witch. Rodriguez insulted me, spinning the cuff in his hand like I was playing some game with him. So when he walked towards the door as if he was leaving, then turned around with those beady red eyes and sent an electric ball my way, I sent it right back at him until he was nothing but dust.
"We may not be murderers, but we're no angels either," I called over my shoulder, walking into the living room. My mind began to spin as I slowly walked towards him. There was the love of my life lying on the floor dead because of me. "Andy." His name barely came out as a whisper; the tears falling as my hand laid on his unmoving chest. "I am so sorry. This is all my fault."
In my grief, I barely registered the familiar chime of our white lighter and guardian, Leo entering the room; followed by the familiar steps of my sisters.
"Leo. Can this wait? We're kind of going through something right now."
"I know. That's why I'm here." Leo pressed with a determined glance into the living room. "Can we talk?"
"Fine. In the kitchen." Piper gestured down the hall as they both disappeared out of view. Phoebe was just closing the fridge with a carton of orange juice in hand when they walked in.
"Oh good, Leo's here." Phoebe walked across the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the cabinet. "Please say you're not here because someone needs saving because now is not a particularly good time-"
"I'm not here because I need help." Leo sighed. "I can't go into full detail but the elders just gave me permission to bring Andy back."
"Back?" Phoebe choked, nearly spilling her orange juice all over the counter. "As in back to earth? As what? A whitelighter?"
"Actually as a human."
"Human?" Piper squinted her eyes in confusion as she leaned against the counter for support. "I thought you weren't able to do that when someone has already had called time of death and told their loved one is dead because he walked through the door to save her."
"I can with special permission from the elders," Leo stated, to which Piper turned her back to him and sucked in a deep breath of air; her expression more relaxed now after taking in a few deep breaths.
"Since you're not really giving me much to go on here, what do we suggest telling Prue when we go out there? Sorry, we killed Andy but just kidding he's really coming back, won't do."
"Have you called anyone about Andy yet?" Leo shook his head back and forth like he was silently telling her he hadn't formed a plan of what to say just yet.
"We wanted to make sure Prue had some time with him before we called anyone." Phoebe took a sip of her drink. "What I will never get is how we have to make excuses, like when an electric ball throwing demon walks into our house and kills a human being we all cared about."
"If having powers were easy to deal with, everybody would have them and we wouldn't have to cover up everything that has to do with being a witch."
"Fair point." Phoebe placed the orange juice back into the fridge and wiped the sticky liquid off the counter before they all walked back into the living room.
"Prue." Piper kneeled down next to me on the floor, slowly brushing her fingers through my short black hair. "Prue we need you to wake up. We need to talk, it's about Andy."
"I'm up." I groaned, trying to remember why I was here on the floor in the first place. "What about Andy? I took Piper's hand so I could sit up and stretch my legs out and the memories began to flood back to me. "Leo, what are you doing here?"
"Prue, I've been given permission to bring Andy back," Leo stated, clearly bracing himself to how I would take this news. Truth was that I was a little shocked. Okay, I was really shocked because I thought he just said he was bringing Andy- "Back?"
"I've been given permission to bring him back but I only have a window of time that I can do it."
"I still don't understand. Andy came to me while I was unconscious and he said he wasn't coming back."
"Wait-you saw Andy?" Phoebe tried to hold back the surprise in her voice. "When?"
"When Rodriguez knocked me out earlier," I answered her question, then looked over at Leo with more curiosity than anything. "Question is, why would he tell me that only to have the elders send you to heal him? It doesn't make sense."
"The elders don't always give me full detail to what's happening. All I know is they want him back here on earth. May I?"
"Sure." Phoebe and Piper both held onto me as Leo kneeled down beside Andy. His hands illuminated a soft glow of healing and it seemed like seconds turned into hours before Andy took in a big gasp of air; eyes still closed as his chest rose up and down.
Even though we all knew it was coming, I couldn't believe it was true. My mind was still grieving his death, and here he was alive again. "Andy?"