Chapter 24

Planning, Preparing and Party

"Prue can I talk to you for a sec?" Paige asked approaching her older sister as she entered the kitchen.

Prue looked up from a bowl of cake mixture, her cheeks splattered with flour. She looked rather flustered as she stopped mixing with her wooden spoon and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

"Uh-huh," Paige observed Prue, a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips.

Prue just shook her head and let out an exasperated sigh, "who knew baking a cake could be so hard…where's Piper when you need her eh?"

Paige nodded feeling very much like she needed Piper right then too but not for her to bake a cake.

"So what did you want to talk about, anything important…"

"Well actually yeah…"

Prue continued over the top of Paige, "Because I'm pretty busy here, you know Lindsay's party is tonight and I've got this cake to do and I've got to pick up the balloons and the banners…"

Paige nodded taking the hint, "Right sure you're busy…I'll just go," She turned away from Prue and started out the kitchen.

"Paige?"

She briefly turned back to Prue. "Yeah?" She tried to keep her voice cheerful, to show nothing was wrong.

"You're okay right?" Prue asked and Paige saw her gaze fall to her swollen stomach hidden beneath her baggy jumper.

"No I'm not alright!" Paige wanted to scream but she refrained from telling Prue how scared and worried she was and instead found herself nodding, "I'm fine." She lied.

Prue nodded, a smile appearing on her face. "Good, so I'll see you later."

Paige nodded forcing a smile and left the kitchen.

Maybe if Prue wasn't so preoccupied throwing a party for a girl a few days ago she couldn't stand she might have noticed her youngest sister was lying and that she infact wasn't fine.

"Hey Pheebs," Paige smiled weakly as she entered her sisters room all too aware of the fact that the last time they spoke it had not ended well. She wondered if Phoebe was even talking to her…

The look on Phoebe's face told her it all.

"Can we talk?" Paige asked quietly ignoring Phoebe's icy glare.

"That depends…are you rethinking about adoption?" Phoebe asked quietly catching Paige's eye.

Paige looked down at her feet and sighed, "Phoebe it's not that simple…"

"Right…well actually I have a lot to do today so…" She gestured with her head to the door.

"Like what?" Paige asked purposely ignoring her hint.

Phoebe shrugged, "stuff, a lot of stuff."

Paige nodded while biting her lip, she turned and began to walk away, she paused at the door and looked back round, "I'm sorry…you know for disappointing you." With that she was gone.

Phoebe closed her eyes, feeling guilt wash over her.

"Woah what happened in here?" Andy asked while laughing as he saw the state of the kitchen, covered in flour, cake mixture, and dirty bowls.

Prue popped her head up from behind the kitchen counter where she had been on her knees sweeping up her mess, her cheeks were now free of flour but her trousers weren't anymore. In one hand she had a sweeping brush and the other hand had fallen to her hip as she looked at Andy. "What do you mean what happened in here?" She asked and Andy could tell she was about to go into a rant. "You know what I'll tell you what happened in here…I made a cake, yes that's right I made all this mess by just making one cake. You know if you want to get out of this marriage thing now I wouldn't blame you because I'm a terrible cook we'll be having take-out the whole time…"

Andy laughed, "I bet you it tastes nice," he smiled dipping his fingers into the bowl of leftover cake mix. He licked his finger. "Hmm, I told you so…here try some." He thrust his fingers out to Prue making the mixture land on her nose.

She squealed, "Hey!" In retaliation she dipper her fingers in the bowl and splattered mixture on Andy's face too.

She laughed while he shook his head and wiped his face on a towel then handed it to Prue to wipe her own splattered face.

"So have you got the sandwiches made? Hope you have chicken…"

Prue looked at him in alarm, "sandwiches? What sandwiches?"

"Tell me you made sandwiches I mean you can't expect to feed everyone with one cake!" He exclaimed.

Prue buried her face in her hands and groaned.

Andy sighed, "it doesn't matter we have plenty of time."

Prue nodded, "so with the exception of food is everything else all set?" She asked.

"Yeah, everything." He assured her.

"Good,"

"Everything except convincing Lindsay to go." He added raising an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?" She asked confused.

"Well she thinks everyone hates her which they do, she's not going to come to this party if everyone is going to boo her which we cant even guarantee they won't," Andy explained.

Prue nodded understanding then an idea hit her, "we just won't tell her what it is, you come up with some sort of excuse and bring her to the party."

"And if everyone boos her?"

"I'll warm the crowd first," Prue offered while shrugging her shoulders.

"Okay one more question…do you think this is a good idea or are we just asking for trouble with this?" Andy asked.

Prue bit her lip, "I think we'll have to wait until tonight to find that out."

"She's coming!" Phoebe said in a hushed voice to Prue interrupting a conversation Prue was having with a girl Phoebe recognised as one of the cheerleaders at school.

Prue excused herself from the girl immediately and followed Phoebe to the window where she could make out Andy's car pulling up. She turned to Phoebe and gulped; "here goes nothing."

Phoebe nodded, "okay I'll stall them…you wanna go on stage and announce the star of the party is here!" She smirked and made her way outside as Prue nodded.

Prue stepped up on the small stage and tapped the microphone that was currently there lightly. The noise got everyone's attention reasonably well; she cleared her throat when she knew all eyes were on her.

"Well you know why you're here and I know some of you weren't too keen on coming because of it but I'm glad you all came. I know some of you may have just come to cause trouble but I'm asking you to please not. I know Lindsay Taylor was a pretty bad person who screwed a lot of you over on one occasion or other but I hope you can just forget about it even if its just for one night. Now I know it will be hard, believe me I do, having been screwed over by Lindsay a few times myself but if I can do hopefully you all can to. Everybody deserves a second chance." She smiled softly when she finished and everyone else seemed to be joining her. She breathed a sigh if relief just as Phoebe popped her head around the door.

Prue nodded her head at her and then turned her attention to the crowd again, "okay then, let the party begin everyone, she's here!" Prue shouted out while grinning.

The doors opened and a confused looking Lindsay walked in followed by Andy and Phoebe.

"Andy why are we…" Lindsay started then her attention was suddenly caught by the crowd of people standing before her. Her confused face grew. She looked to Prue who was on stage still; she was grinning at her.

"Wh…what's going on?" She stuttered.

"Surprise!" Everyone erupted making her take a step back in surprise.

Prue came down from the stage and put her arm around her shoulder, "this party is for you!" She explained happily.

Lindsay looked baffled, "really because everyone hates me," she whispered to Prue.

Prue shook her head while still grinning, "Obviously they don't or they wouldn't be here…now come on what do you say…you feel like partying?"

Lindsay broke into a wide grin, "I can't believe you did this for me," she said quietly in amazement.

"Exactly it's for you so start enjoying yourself, okay?" Prue hugged her as Andy came over and Lindsay hugged him aswell.

"Thank you both," she said sincerely, her voice cracking slightly.

Prue and Andy both nodded while smiling at her. Prue glanced up and caught sight of two people she knew Lindsay would want to see. She gestured for Lindsay to turn around.

She did and was brought in for a group hug with her two old friends Karen and Miranda. Prue couldn't hear what they were saying but she could tell they were all friends again. She smiled happily and felt Andy wrap his arm around her, she looked up at him and they shared a warm smile.

Feeling her cell phone vibrate, Phoebe dug into her bag and took it out, she loaded up the new message she had received and was surprised when she read who sent it.

"Cole," she whispered in confusion.

She read over the message which was casually just asking how she was and what she had been up to. But he'd signed it…love Cole. Her stomach fluttered and she had every intention of replying until…

"Hey who you texting?"

She jumped out of her skin and nearly dropped her cell, "Lee wow you scared me." She mumbled quickly flipping her cell shut.

He gave her a strange look but smiled, "So who was it?" He asked.

"Oh…it was just a random company trying to scam me by saying I'll get free texts if I reply to that number…" She shrugged and forced herself to smile brightly.

He nodded and smiled; "Okay well you want to dance?" He asked holding out his hand to her.

She looked around at everyone else dancing and nodded taking his hand and allowing him to pull her up from her chair.

"You look really pretty tonight," He whispered in her ear as he led her to the dance floor.

She smiled genuinely, "thank you."

All thoughts of texting Cole back left her mind as she was spun around the dance floor.

"I can't believe you persuaded me to come here," Paige whined to Kyle as they sat down at a table.

"Hey come on it'll do you good…get out of the house…have fun." He encouraged smiling brightly.

She pulled at her top self-consciously barely listening to him then she looked up at him, he was smiling reassuringly, "you look great." He assured her.

She softened and nodded, "okay maybe you're right it could be fun…thanks Kyle…you're a great friend."

He nodded, "yeah actually I wanted to talk to you about that." He shifted slightly nervously in his seat.

Paige observed him curiously, "okay…"

"So I think you're really great and I really like hanging out with you but lately…well I've been feeling more…"

"Oh my God Glen," she mumbled in surprise.

"Actually its Kyle," he said feeling a little annoyed.

"No…look its Glen over there with that girl," She explained bitterly.

Kyle looked over and saw Glen; a girl with blonde hair had her hand on his shoulder and was flirting outrageously with him and to Paige's dismay he wasn't exactly fighting her off.

He turned back round to Paige and smiled sympathetically.

"Yeah I can't watch that…I'm going to go." She got up from her seat.

"Paige…" Kyle tried.

She just kept walking away though. He sighed as he watched her leave.

"Hi, everyone, thanks for coming tonight, I hope you're all having a good time" Andy said into a microphone as he stood on stage, everyone cheered and clapped. He grinned, "I'll take that as a yes. So we're all here for Lindsay but actually we are kind of here to celebrate someone else too. That person being Lindsay's newborn son who currently doesn't have a name yet. So we'll just have a cheer for Baby Taylor!"" Everyone cheered again. "Congratulations Lindsay he's gorgeous," he caught Lindsay eye and she smiled warmly at him.

"Didn't she feed you some lie that you were the dad!" Some from the crowd shouted out.

Lindsay shifted uncomfortably in her seat as everyone stared at her then back at Andy; he nodded slightly, feeling awkward, he quickly composed himself and cleared his throat. "Some of you probably think I'm out of my mind standing up here offering my congratulations since yeah that's true at one point I believed the baby was mine because of a lie. But I'm getting past that and you know the actual dad turned out to be a fellow football player of mine…Chris Banks. He was a pretty good guy once you got to know him and Lindsay did. He really cared about her and I think she really cared about him too but was scared to admit it so she let him leave for LA and since then she's regretted it." Lindsay was looking puzzled at him wondering why he was saying all that.

"So with the help of my lovely fiancée over there," he smiled at Prue, "we arranged to make this happen."

Everyone was looking about the place curiously until someone appeared from behind the curtain on stage.

Lindsay gasped and felt herself nearly fall from her seat. She covered her mouth with her hand in shock.

"You wanna come up here Lindsay?" Andy asked smiling at her then back at Chris who was smiling at her shocked face.

Her legs didn't seem to work but she managed to nod slightly. Prue helped her up and followed her onto the stage.

She reached the front and stood awkwardly in front of Chris wondering what to do. They hadn't exactly ended on the best terms with her telling him to go and that she loved Andy not him. It turned out she didn't have to say anything. He simply pulled her in for a tight hug, which she gladly accepted.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled into his chest.

He laughed softly, "its okay."

She lifted her head slightly and caught Andy's eye, she smiled, her eyes teary.

Andy just winked and smiled softly, his arm around Prue.

Prue yawned yet again. Andy smiled at her and took the garbage bag out of her hand; "come on we can finish all this tomorrow."

The party had ended an hour ago and they were the only ones left just clearing up.

Prue nodded leaning her head on his shoulder, "tonight was great." She said while yawning again.

"It was," Andy agreed happily.

"I mean the look on her face when she saw Chris up there…." She sighed, a smile appearing on her face at the thought. "You think they'll be okay them two?"

"They have a lot to talk about…they have a kid together, he lives in LA she lives here…but I think they will."

"They're al lot like us." Prue mused, her eyes closing slightly.

"How do you figure that one out?" He asked amused.

"Well… they have a baby together and…well they have a baby together and so do we." Prue explained.

Andy nodded and laughed.

"And I think we'll be okay too." She added as an after thought, her eyes giving up and closing. Andy felt her weight on his shoulder and carried her over to a chair. He smiled at her sleeping figure and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "I love you." He whispered.

She grunted and he laughed. "You too." He heard her mumble though.

He smiled and shook his head leaning over and kissing her forehead lightly.

Paige threw random clothes into a bag and quickly grabbed basic necessities. It wasn't long before she was going down the stairs bag on back.

She left the manor without looking back. She was sick of it there. No one understood how she was feeling or they just weren't listening to her.

She needed to get out of San Francisco where Glen was flirting with other girls and moving on, where Prue was busy throwing parties and where Phoebe who was just angry at her for thinking about adoption.

Piper was always the understanding sister and she couldn't talk about this over the phone so the only other option was to go to New York herself.

Okay so I know some of you wanted Phoebe to go to New York so she could see Cole so I'll just say this- someone has to go and get Paige from New York if she won't come back voluntarily…