Hi, so here is another chapter, I will keep the note short and sweet and let you get on with it.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.

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Before And After

Chapter 8-Old Times

Prue and Andy contemplate parenthood as the sister's babysit a small child whose being hunted by a vengeful ghost.

"So you've basically kidnapped the small child?" Andy said when he came home to find Prue with a frantic look on her face trying to calm down a screaming bundle of joy. She had passed the baby to Piper who had looked just as horrified but had taken him into the kitchen as Phoebe was sketching what looked like the face of someone onto a bit of scrap paper.

It did not take long to get the whole story out of them. Ghosts, murder, one of the wealthiest families in town and a baby apparently abandoned by his father so that he escape the carnage that was all this mess.

According to Phoebe's premonition skills that is.

"Not kidnapped him. More like keeping him in protective custody. Isn't that what you used to do as a cop?"

"Yes" said Andy carefully. Pointless to point out that he was not a cop anymore especially considering he was holding a briefcase full of notes he needed to read about the security for a visiting diplomat who was refusing to sign off on any plan until it was checked by three different people who all had careers in law enforcement.

"But when we did this as a cop we had plans in place. Court orders, social services involved, we lined up the next of kin, we had officers who had children who knew what to do in a crisis—and failing that we used Daryl a lot considering he'll never stop having children. We didn't just pick the baby up and take him home with us simply because we saw the past. And it was bad"

Prue rolled her eyes.

"It was not like that and you know it."

"I know you three in a crisis. You do whatever it takes to protect your innocent and that screaming demon is the very definition of innocent even though he doesn't sound like it"

"He's just been through a lot" Phoebe said adding what looked like a nose to her picture, rubbing out the end and re-drawing it so that it was a bit longer. "And his name is Matthew. And we know it's not neglect that saw him being abandoned, just the opposite in fact. His Dad must have wanted to protect him and figured that the ghost was not going to try in a police office"

Andy said nothing.

"Besides it's good, considering when we went to the future you and Prue, Piper and Leo all had children I figured it would be good practice"

"Phoebe" Prue said sharply.

"Well what? I was burnt at a literal stake. What do I need to practice for. Looks like I have a long time before that becomes a problem."

Prue just shook her head and then stopped.

"Oh my god" she said tilting her head to the side. "Do you hear it?"

"What?" Andy asked pulling off his jacket and wondering if it would be rude considering he lived her now if he pulled of his socks and shoes as well.

"Nothing, absolutely nothing"

"Wow. Piper got him to sleep"

And then suddenly just as he spoke there was a cry that grew into an ear splitting wail. Andy winced.

"Oh god" he said to Prue, "And you mean to tell me that in the future we have two of them? Two of that?"

"Actually I think we were trying for three" Prue said with a groan.

Andy sighed. He could already see that this was becoming a long night.

And he did not just mean for the baby.

Or because of the baby

It wasn't that Prue was hard hearted. She could understand baby Matthew's panic and his confusion. He had in the space of one day lost his father and been abandoned by his family and been picked up from a confusing police station by three sisters who had magic and one man who most decidedly did not.

But seriously the screaming.

Eventually a mobile of stuff flying around at one in the morning seemed to do it but Prue was so tired she felt like it was college all over again and she was getting four hours or so sleep the week before finals.

She must have dozed off at one point because her body jerked her awake so violently that she nearly fell of the couch. The mobile had stopped and she was half prepared for the baby to start screaming again but someone else had gotten there first.

"And this is called the magazine…now a lot of training officers will tell you that you only need to clean your gun once every couple of weeks but if you want to be on the ball I'd say doing it once a week is best. Might take up some of your time but trust me you don't want to be chasing down bad guys and this jams."

She focuses her eyes on what was in front of her. Andy with baby Matthew who was awake and blinking watching as he reloaded his gun. Baby Matthew was on his lap and his tiny fingers were outstretched as if he saw the (not loaded) weapon as a new toy.

Typical boys and their toys.

"Well look whose up" he said shaking the baby a little as he gurgled. Prue smiled.

"I fell asleep?"

"Lucky I had just gotten all the work done, I was coming down the stairs just to see the mobile begin to fall. But Matthew and I have been having a long chat about law enforcement in this country and I think we have a cop on our hands"

"Of course you do"

Andy grinned.

"Can you believe in the future we might have to do this three times?" he said suddenly.

"You believe that's going ahead? I mean…we did stop Phoebe from doing the thing that would see her burning at the stake, and you did quit the police force"

"Because witches in the future aren't going to be hunted down. But that shouldn't stop our children being born although…I think that this house might get a bit crowded if they do"

Prue thought about it.

"Do you want them?"

"Kids? Course. That was one of the reasons my first marriage failed."

Prue blinked. "You know you don't talk about that you know. Or her. I know she called you at the hospital"

She didn't mean for it to sound so accusing but she thought that it did. Andy if he picked up on it didn't comment on it.

"Nothing to tell really. I wanted kids she didn't. I didn't hate her for it or anything, I still don't I just…at the time I didn't want kids, I was on a fast track to Detective and I wanted to get to the point where I was a Captain at my own prescient and that career path meant a lot of attention on the job and not at home. She was climbing her own career path at the law firm and she didn't want to stop even when I did. It was more of a mutual parting of the ways really and nothing else. Explains why we can still talk which not a lot of other divorce couples can do."

"And now?"

"Now what? I still wants kids Prue, I want them with you but I'm not suggesting we go upstairs and try now—unless of course you want to and then—"

He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and Prue laughed.

"I just…I just don't know when life around here will calm down enough to for kids to become an option. Right now…I mean…"

"Doesn't mean we don't live our lives." Andy said simply. "You could apply that logic to you and to me that day I came in through that front door. We've still made it work"

Prue thought about it.

"And all the other things in that world? The lack of marriage for example—I remember what your Dad was like. There was a reason we were in separate bedrooms when I spent nights at yours—"

"Yeah well, he isn't here right now. And besides he'll take grandchildren regardless of weather a wedding goes ahead. How he'll feel about our son shooting fire out of his fingers is another story but…"

Prue laughed. The other thing though she didn't want to taint this perfectly warm and simple moment between the two of them was that she didn't know what a traditional home and family looked like. Victor had walked out years ago and their Mom…it had been Grams for a long time and then it had been her and somehow the three of them had come through it alright but there was always a chance that something could happen to her or to Andy…Andy especially who was so fragile and…human.

But he saw through that. He could read her like a book. All of the people who could were in this house. And he was one of them.

"I aint going anywhere Prue. If I do it's in a box. I am not your father and I would never be to you or our kids. If I was going to run I'd have done it the first time you mentioned ectoplasm."

She laughed then. She couldn't help herself and Baby Matthew who had been dozing against his chest jerked away at that pointed making his displeasure known.

Loudly.

"My turn" came a voice from the stairs and they turned to see Phoebe her hair mused and her eyes still filled with sleep come down the stairs. Her sister in nightclothes was a complete contradiction because she managed to wear nothing but shorts and a shirt that oozed sexiness and yet completed the image with her bunny slippers.

Good thing Andy was used to Phoebe. Anyone else would be utterly confused.

"Yeah" Andy said passing the baby to Phoebe who winced as he went straight for her hair.

"Come on" he said to her. "Bed"

She went and though they were both too exhausted to try anything she thought that she was ready to be a Mom. She thought of the two children she had seen in the future and she thought that the pain Matthew's mother must be going through was so intense that she had to think of something else.

Andy his hands warm around her found her stomach and she thought that she too was not the only one thinking about the baby downstairs with Phoebe and the moment that had passed between them.

Running through a woods chasing a vindictive ghost was quickly becoming a pastime for them on a Friday night. Phoebe could remember when her Friday nights were filled with cocktails, men and dancing until dawn. She could remember terraces overlooking New York and Clay spinning her around until she thought that the world was hers and she would want nothing more than this.

Boy had that dream ended.

Andy had come with them. Prue had been against the idea but Andy had pointed out that a human might be able to get through the door and if the ghost was aware of witches that might be what he was on the look out for. He had gone in and managed to distract Martha long enough to distract the ghost as they poured the potion over his grave but then it had gone pear-shaped and they'd had to retreat from the grounds to the house.

"You know I really hate it when it's kids" she said as she stared at something on her shoe that was really not going to come out.

Martha was watching them with wide eyes.

"You deal with this…er…a lot?"

"Not really" Piper said.

But there was still the conversation of what happened next and though they had told her—after all she of all people had a right to know—nothing had been decided. Martha had been sat in silence thinking hard for a long time before she next spoke and when she did she directed her questions at Andy and not at the three of them.

"May I ask what happens to Matthew?"

"What do you mean?"

"When…when this is all over can we take him home? Or do we face questions as to why he was abandoned?"

"The officer in charge of the case is understanding" Andy said suddenly. "He understands. Children's services might still want to know some things but I am sure that your daughter in law can think of something."

Martha nodded.

"It was never supposed to be this way you know. I…I never wanted to…he attacked me you understand and I just wanted to get that power back. My husband…for all of his good qualities he would have never understood why I wanted to do it myself. And the scandal…"

"There's no shame in being raped" Prue said softly.

"No there isn't. But it would have broken my husband and my sons. And I loved them all enough to do the unthinkable. And then we covered it up because of the consequences"

"You had a pretty clear cut case of provocation" Andy pointed out.

"I suppose. But…but it just seemed easier. Of all the decisions we could have made…but then again I don't suppose that it would have made much of a difference. He would have kept haunting us no matter what?"

"Probably"

"Well" Martha said standing up and smoothing her skirts. "That's something at least"

"Do any of you have children?"

Four people shook their heads at her and she smiled.

"You do things for your children. Things that you cannot possibly understand until you have held them in your arms. And then when you lose them…you want to die with them. But you love them and you protect them and that doesn't stop. I couldn't save my children. I can save Matthew. And that is all that matters to me now."

Elias popped up then and the exchange between the victim and the perp was short and then before any of them could stop her she had taken back her power again for the second time and had thrown herself of the balcony.

They went home in subdued silence.

"So what happens now?" Piper asked into the silence.

"Police will no doubt rule it a suicide, that was after all what it was. Matthew will go home to his mother and we all live our lives as best we can"

Prue shook her head.

"We should have found a way"

Andy wrapped an arm around her.

"How? You heard her. She knew the second you told her the body had been moved that this was the only way to protect her grandson. To end it and to see her son's legacy safe. You couldn't stop her from doing that. Besides, I think she knew from the start why it was happening. She knew all the options and still did what she did. There was no way that you could have stopped her.

"Doesn't matter. We lost the innocent."

"She did kill someone Prue, I get why she did it believe me. I understand fully why she did it but she did kill someone. And she kept quiet. Maybe had she gone to the police he would have stopped"

"No" Piper said finally. "He would have carried on. His obsession was not his body. He moved it somewhere in the grounds where it will never be found without a second thought. It was never about his body. It was all about Martha. I think Andy's right Prue, there was nothing really that we could have done. It started with those two and it had to end with those two"

Prue said nothing.

They sat in silence for a while until Andy's phone pinged. He read the message from Daryl nodded and then threw the phone onto the table uncaring of the noise it made. Baby Matthew had slept through the carnage unaware that he had lost a grandmother tonight as well as a father.

"We can bring him to the station in the morning. Daryl's smoothed it over made it look like a domestic. Child Services will want to follow up but it should all work out in the end"

Prue settled against him.

"Well that's something anyway"

Prue came to see him at lunch. He was working out the office and though she had seen it (and had decorated it with the stuff that Buckland's couldn't auction but would have been tragic to throw, Andy had just been told to sit down and let her work before he had put her on the desk of his office and…well…you know.

"He's gone" she said forlornly staring at the artwork she had picked out that was above his desk. Andy closed his laptop on the report he had gotten from his boss about checking the potential plans for a movement of an embassy from the Caribbean to another part of the country and the security risks involved and he placed the device on the chair.

"That's a good thing" he said gently. "He's with his Mom now. And though it was fun he was never really ours"

"I know. And she was brilliant, said she would send us pictures and everything. And she was so happy Andy…"

"Maybe she was the innocent in all of this" he said quietly. "She did marry into the family with no clue of the secret that was rotting beneath the woodland. Now she can move on, raise her son and perhaps find someone else who she can share her life with"

Prue thought about this.

"You know, that is such a nice way of putting it" she said with a smile. "I didn't…I didn't think of it that way"

"That's why you keep me around" he said winking .

"No" she said and with one wave of her hand the door locked, the phone disconnected and the curtains closed.

"I keep you around for a lot more than that"

He raised one eyebrow.

"Oh do you?"

She grinned and then the button on her sinfully short blouse popped open of it's own accord showing her orange bra beneath it.

"Say do you want to see if we can make that baby boy of ours today?"

Andy felt his smile explode on his face regardless.

"Perhaps" he said with a smile slipping of his leather jacket.

They both knew he meant yes.

And there you are, I hope you enjoy.

The bit about Andy's ex-wife and the breakdown of his first marriage is my idea. As far as I can see there was no discussion about it on the show.

Next Chapter-Piper is seriously ill leaving the sisters in a perilous position and Andy is accidently caught in the crossfire when the spell they cast goes terribly wrong.