Hi, so here is another chapter and I hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.

Please Read and Review.

Before And After

Chapter 5-Sticks And Stones

As Andy and Prue begin their relationship for real, Prue is plagued by the ghosts of the past, the wonders of the future and the irritating presence of Jack Sheridan. Meanwhile Andy begins to make plans for the future. Again multiple episodes will be covered in this chapter.

It was easy.

That was the first thing that she realised. And it surprised her and irritated her in equal measure. Prue was not sure what she had expected from Andy's desire to return to their relationship but she had not expected the ease of it.

It was easy for him to call up and surprise her for lunch and easy for her to spend nights at his apartment. All they were doing was talking and she helped out sometimes with his PT but it was the good kind of talking.

Andy appeared to have made the decision that though he was going to retire from the force (with his full pension and his pay intact) he was also going to stay in the know with all the magic. Prue had spent two days spending time with him explaining how it worked from Melinda Warren to her trip to the future. He was right in a way—there was so much secrecy between them that there was no point in keeping going with the lies and deception of the past. They needed to move on and if that involved telling Andy everything including their trip to the future then what did it matter when he was telling her so clearly that he was not going to run.

He took it rather well, going back over his time as a cop and explaining the death of the priest, the demon one with the two warlock brothers, the demon that liked sucking youth out of his victims that had all been found later with various degrees of memory loses, the demon that sucked testosterone out of her victims through their mouth—and here he had coughed, left the room as fast as he could on his stiff leg and come back inside ten minutes with a bottle of bourbon downing two fingers quickly before he gestured to say she could continue—and then their trip to the future where upon his pressing she had told him about Peter and Anna and the world where witchcraft was known and hunted down like they were something out of a science fiction movie gone horribly wrong.

"Wow" he said into the silence. "Kids. And I really didn't put a ring on your finger?"

"Apparently living in sin does it for us" she deadpanned and Andy barked out a laugh before he could stop himself leaning back on the couch and staring at his wall as if he could see through it to the future.

"Wow" he said again. "And to think I was on track to replace the Commissioner"

Prue said nothing but the more she was thinking about it the more it hurt. That future was not set in stone. She had known that the second they had not used magic to punish the guilty that the world in which Phoebe was dragged to the stake and set on fire would not exist. In that case then the world where Piper and Leo had a daughter, she effectively ruled the corporate world and had blonde hair, and two children did not exist.

"You were really blonde?" he asked suddenly.

"Platinum"

Andy stared at her. "No offense Prue but do you think you were mad at me when you did that. Cause I really can't imagine you as a blonde. Seems unnatural to me"

And suddenly she was laughing. It seemed strange to her but she was laughing.

"Out of everything in the last four months that you have heard that is the thing that bothers you? The fact that I went blonde?"

Andy laughed too and then without warning he pulled her so she was in his lap.

"Your leg."

"Fuck my leg"

"Andy"

But he was kissing her and she found she didn't care all that much about anything.

That night they went to bed together. They didn't have sex but they curled up together in their pyjama's as if they were teenagers again and they were still figuring out how it worked the two of them together. She curled into his side and his arm came around her waist pulling her into his good side.

"What were their names again?"

"Whose?" she asked sleepily. Not that she needed to ask. She knew who he was thinking off.

"Our children"

"Peter" she said quietly. "Peter and Anna. And they both had magic, and…he looked a lot like you. She looked like me I think but…they were all for storming the prison like a pair of rabid animals"

Andy laughed. "Sounds like our kids doesn't it?"

"Yes I suppose it does"

There was a silence between them for a while and then Andy spoke up.

"One day at a time"

And yes Prue thought as she fell asleep, that seemed like a plan.

One day at a time however did not seem to deal with the uncontrollable carnage that was Jack Sheridan who landed in her lap as if he was thrown straight out of the sky—or from hell depending on what your viewpoint of him was.

Prue had dealt with cocky men, after all you did not almost marry a man like Rodger without learning to compromise when it came to the ego but she didn't want to do it again. When she looked back at Rodger, when she looked back at who she was and what she had been and how he had played her she found that she was ashamed of herself. He had gone after her and then gone after Phoebe with single deadly intent probably because he had known that she would believe Piper over Phoebe any day. He had used his arrogance and his charm and his cockiness to make sure that she was in just the right position for her to stick the knife in both in their relationship and in his career. The damage he had done to her relationship with Phoebe had been almost catastrophic and it had taken a long time and a lot of hard work (both kicking demon's butts and through talking about their feelings) in order for them to get themselves onto a better plane.

So she was not impressed by Jack Sheridan and when she stormed home in a foul mood having been shown up on TV to see Andy on the couch at the manner his leg stretched out in front of him.

"What happened?" she asked dropping that hideous looking wand on the couch.

"Nothing. I was thinking some things over today and I wanted to run something by you so I called your office, your assistant reminded me that you were supposed to be on TV and I had barely just flipped the channel over only to see it well…disintegrate"

That Prue thought was a rather diplomatic way of putting it.

"He's a prick" she said sitting down on the couch.

"Oh yeah he is…but…can I just say while I love the fact that you no longer wear bra's I reckon that maybe wearing that outfit in front of him didn't help"

Prue looked down at the halter top that she was wearing and shrugged. She had to admit since Andy had survived the massacre at the manner she had become lax about her work fashion choices. Mainly because she had decided that she didn't care anymore. And also the amount of grief, loss heartache Buckland's had given her—not to mention the amount of money and names that she brought in—she was pretty sure that she could get away with wearing whatever she wanted by now.

And also wasn't she destined to own the place?

"Perhaps, but I like to be free"

"And believe me honey nobody in the world wants to discourage you from that. Least of all me, the wardrobe changes between me in hospital and me coming out have been very much appreciated, especially due to the fact that we can't have sex until my ribs have healed properly"

Prue laughed though she had to admit he had a point. There was a reason why drunken fumbling tended to remain in the teenage years.

She was hungry for something more now.

"Is that why you came over. To tell me that Jack Sheridan is a prick? Or is it because you're staring at your walls again now you have nothing to do?"

"Bit of both really. Not that this place is without it's drama"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. But not the magical kind thank God, at least not right now. Piper let me in and then went on to continue the row with her angel/lover/whatever role Leo fills. Something about Dan"

Prue winced sympathetically. Granted she was not entirely sure what was going on between Piper and Dan but she knew that Piper liked him. That he was here when Leo was not and that any romance between the two of them was not going to be forbidden by anyone or anything.

But Piper like she was torn between what she had seen in the future. The little girl with magic whose powers she had been debating weather or not to bind. She had wondered why she and Andy had never done that and then had to shake her head. For whatever reason for her it didn't seem to work that way. Maybe it was because she knew that she was going to have a different kind of future. A kind of future where she had part of the puzzle but not the whole one. It was difficult to explain but like Phoebe she didn't agonize over the decisions that were made in another world.

"I've decided what I'm going to do as well" Andy said finally as Prue stretched out next to him.

"Oh?"

"I've been offered a partnership at one of the local security firms. Actually, one of the biggest in the city. It would only be three days a week while I recover maybe more. But they are promising really good pay and really good benefits, plus the working from home option is really good as well"

Prue pushed herself up and looked at him.

"Like private investigations? Or private security?"

"Not like I'm tracking down the cheating spouse at the hotel or anything like that but more like keeping an eye out. They train police forces in three different counties, they look into big events and help out security forces with advancing them. And they do look at cold cases from time to time and try to find anything new. It would just mean I wouldn't carry a gun all the time. Danger would be significantly less as well. Plus unlike the PD, they don't care if I don't wear a suit for the rest of my life."

"So it works out well?"

"Well…I'll be able to come and have dinner with you when your not working or demon hunting. And we can actually spend time together without a conflicting work schedule. Plus I can help out here as well. If were going to do this then I need to know what I'm up against. I can help research if you want and stuff like that. Just please call me when your brewing potions cause whatever Piper had in the kitchen when I came in almost sent me back to the hospital and I don't think it was her famous strawberry pancakes"

Prue laughed. It was so easy to do that now around him. As if the secrets of the past few months between them had melted away. Had she known that deep down he would take it this way she would have told him the night she made the pharmacy explode.

It was at that moment that Leo and Piper came back into the room Phoebe in the traditional role of the middle child was trailing after them.

"Whatever you have to say Leo you can say in front of Andy" Piper said crossly sitting down. "He might be as mortal as Dan is but he's family"

The 'So there' was left unsaid.

Leo's face if possible crumpled a little bit more at her response. Andy next to her said nothing but if Prue knew him and she did, she was willing to bet all of the money that Jack Sheridan had offered her that when this was over Andy was going to ask if Leo wanted a beer and a bit of male company.

"You're pushing him to hard" Andy said quietly.

Leo had been working with the kid Kyle and he had stormed off in a rage of teenage hormones that Andy really, really didn't want to think about dealing with all over again and Leo had come into the kitchen looking like a dog that was just waiting to be kicked.

"He needs to be pushed" Leo replied taking the beer from Andy and taking a swig. "Right now, the fate of the world is in his hands and he needs to get it together"

Andy snorted.

"Look" he said sitting down at the kitchen island and wincing as his hip twinged with the effort. "When I found out about Prue and the girls and the magic I was in shock for days. I read a load of stuff that I really shouldn't have and then I saw that book and it knocked me for six. Then Prue told me about ghosts and truth spells and then…then I ended up in hospital and I woke up and realised it didn't matter because I was still in love with her. And even now I struggle with the whole going to the future thing and demons sucking God only knows what, out of men's bodies and etc. And I am a grown man Leo. I have seen some shit on the job that keeps me up at night and this is beyond that. You've took a sixteen year old boy out of High School and away from a family where he is the punching bag no doubt, dropped a bomb on him and then told him he is responsible for saving the world from certain doom. Yeah I'd give the kid a moment"

Leo flipped the bottle top over and caught it in his hand.

"I never had that luxury" he said finally. "When I was sixteen Hitler had taken most of Europe and was trying to take the rest. I was desperate to go and stop him. And then when I was twenty war broke out and then I had to wait another two years for it to come to the US. I went as a medic to Pearl Harbour for training and then straight to Europe after that. I never had time to breathe. I always knew what was coming. Certain death"

"You didn't think you'd survive?"

Leo looked at him and for the first time Andy could appreciate what it must be like for him. All alone in the world unable to be with the woman he loved and the friends he depended on dying or dead or growing old. The world he had lived in fading to the pages of history books. He felt his sympathy and his respect grow for the man in spades in those few seconds alone.

"Did you think you'd survive when you came through the front door that day?"

That…that was a point actually.

"Touché"

And then suddenly they were laughing and smiling at each other.

"I should say thanks for putting the manner back together"

"Oh that's alright" Leo said grinning. "Though if your going to have a repeat of it can you please not do it near the windows. Those French stained glass pieces are a bitch to keep getting"

Andy laughed.

"I can try and heal you, you know…take the pain away but…but I'm not sure how your alive"

Andy wasn't sure either but this was decidedly a human thing.

"Nah it's ok. This part of mortality is the part I enjoy"

And they were still stood there smiling when Kyle came back looking sheepish but ready to try believing in a world that was so beyond believing it really did take you having to be thrown into glass windows or airlifted to heaven from a warzone for you to realise it.

And there you are, I hope you enjoy and I will bring you the next one sooner rather than later.

Next Chapter-As Prue tackles the demon that killed her mother Andy meets Sam and sees first hand the risks that come with loving a Charmed One.