Gideon spoke composed and commanding, "I believe that it is best that we treat, Andy as a possible threat until we can resolve the issue. Even though I'm sure his intentions were good, the Avatars have a way of persuading people to do things they normally wouldn't"
Prue opened her mouth to speak but Piper spoke for her. "A threat? Andy is part of our family. If he had some sort of business with the Avatars then Prue would know…"
Piper watched uneasily as Prue's eyes fell to the floor. She could tell by the expression on Prue's face that she felt betrayed…betrayed by two men she care deeply for.
Prue stalked out her bedroom and ran a hand through her hair. Inside, she wanted to scream but part of her was afraid of what type of sound would come out. Words continuously whirled in and out of her mind with no wait to express themselves verbally.
No..no…no..Andy would never take up with the Avatars or anyone else to save Aleyia…at least not without consulting her. It just wasn't possible was it?
And the kiss from Bane, Andy had seen it all…could things possibly be any worse? At the moment she didn't see how. She was about to renter the bedroom when Piper suddenly appeared beside her grabbing her hand.
"C'mon, I know exactly what you need" Taking the stairs two steps at a time the Charmed sisters made their way to the attic. "You need to talk to Andy now before this situation gets any worse"
Predictably, Prue balked at that statement and pulled away. She would never tell Piper but for once in her life she was afraid.
"Oh for Christ sakes, would you step down from your Wiccan pedstal and think of your mortal side for once? You have a marriage to save here Prue. You do want to save your relationship with Andy don't you?"
Piper watched her stubborn sister bite down into her bottom lip. "C'mon, Prue you and Andy have been through too much to throw your afterlife together away…especially over Bane"
"I love Andy," Prue mouthed with a playful squint as tears started to spill over from her silent frustration.
Piper engulfed the older Halliwell in a hug "I know you do sweetie and we're going to fix things with Andy, but before we can that we have to fix your voice, " Taking Prue's hand, Piper took in a deep breath.
"Take my voice and all of it's sound and give it to my sister who is silent bound"
Instantly a bright ball of light emitted from Piper's throat and floated into Prue's causing both witches to gasp, grabbing at their windpipes.
"Say something," Piper tried to say only to find that her voice had become nothing but a swallow sound of gurgles.
"I have your voice and you have mine!" Prue's eyes widened as Piper's voice floated from her lips startling her at the sound.
"Piper?" Leo's called from the bottom of the stairs, prompting Prue to shift her eyes back and forth in thought.
"Up Here!"
Piper could only giggle at thought of her voice coming out of Prue's mouth.
Leo stepped into the doorway, throwing his thumb over his shoulder "Oh Hey, Gideon said…."
"I'm really not interested in what Gideon has to say right now…or Bane for that matter" Prue crossed her arms over chest watching at Leo's eyes grew large.
"Piper, your voice?"
"Is in me, I'm borrowing it" Prue returned proudly looking back at Piper, "But just until I can talk to Andy. Then I'm giving it back"
Piper smiled and nodded giving her consent as Prue brushed past Leo in search of Amanda.
Down in the Underworld, Gideon, met with a figure cloaked in a khaki burlap looking robe which covered his face. Two eyes shone in the mist of swirling sand where a face should have been.
"Why have you summoned me?"
"I have come to offer to you, a proposition of power, and all you have to do is offer a mere distraction" Gideon returned.
The sand demon hissed flicking little bits of sand as he spoke, "what type of proposition?"
"I am prepared to offer you all free access of all the words, underworld sand caverns in exchange for a sacrifice of a few of your men"
The sand demon lifted his transparent, sandy hand to the chin of his cloak. "Why would an elder relinquishing the worlds sand to a demon?"
"I have personal reasons" Gideon then reached into his own cloak and pulled out a large hourglass, handing it to the demon.
"The sand of the Mojave!" the Demon beamed causing Gideon to grin. Controlling the sand in the desert would mean control of the outlining casinos and an easy access to the Vegas crime scene.
"If you and your tribe can manage to keep the mortal Tracer out of touch for the next twenty four hours, it will all be yours for the taking"
"It shall be done" Graciously, the demon stroked the hourglass and tucked into the his cloak before exploding into a burst of white sand.
"Amanda!"
"She's in here" Hearing Piper's voice Paige craned her neck from where she stood over the island in the kitchen. Now that she was finished playing death for the day, she had decided to practice her culinary skills by baking a celebratory cake in honor of Cole and Drake's commitment to raise Declan.
Glenda was sitting on the counter while Amanda stood on a stool beside her aunt, helping to mix the batter.
"Prue?" Paige's face crinkled, "I thought I heard Piper?"
"You did" Prue smiled as she pushed through the door, "She cast a spell so that I could use her voice to talk to Andy"
"Oh" Paige's eyebrow's knitted as she lifted the bowl off the counter and attempted to pour the batter into two round cake pans. Glenda and Amanda giggled as the batter oozed from the bowl, missing the pan.
"Uh, why don't you let me help" with a wave of her hand, Prue plucked the batter from midair before it could hit the counter, directing into the pan.
"Thanks, Piper…Prue…." Paige corrected, "okay this is officially weird"
"I know" Prue shrugged licking the side of the bowl, "but at least I can express my feelings…which reminds me" Prue looked at her oldest daughter. She needed Amanda to sense Andy's orb pattern so that she could find him "Amanda, sweetie can you tell me where Daddy is?"
"No," Amanda shook her head as she followed her Mother's lead and stuck her hand in the bowl, motioning for Glenda to follow.
"No meaning you can sense the orbs or no meaning you aren't going to tell me" Prue repeated placing a hand on her hip.
"Daddy told me not too," Amanda answered in a matter of fact tone.
Ooo…using my own child against me; Prue seethed quietly.
"Well wouldn't you if you saw Andy kiss someone else?" Paige giggled, placing the two cake pans on the warm oven rack.
"No never! And for the record, I didn't kiss Bane he kissed me"
Paige placed her hand on the counter and started drumming her fingers expectantly.
"Okay, maybe I kissed him back a little bit…but I thought he was Andy!"
"I'm not the one you need to convince" Paige retorted flatly.
"Which brings me back to square one" Prue looked down at her daughter who now a perfect ring of chocolate cake batter around her face. "Look Amanda, I know you made Daddy a promise, but sometimes we need to break our promises to keep people from getting hurt"
"Did a demon hurt him?"
"No" Prue glanced up at Paige for a moment, and tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. "I did"
A bright stream of glittering orbs flew through the sky landing on a rocky area at San Francisco Bay. Waves crashed against the rocks as Andy stood tall surveying the area. No one was there; no one at all. The particular section of beach had been closed due to a hepatitis warning brought on by contaminated water.
Completely alone, thats what Andy wanted at the moment. He needed time to think over all that happened with Prue and the deserted beach seemed to be just the place. He'd thought about going back to the park but the idea that their swing had been destroyed stopped him.
Why had Prue run to Bane to so quickly? He picked up a tiny rock near his feet and chucked into the sea before orbing down into the sand.
Was Prue so angry with him that she wanted to throw everything that had together away? A tight feeling gathered in his chest. He really couldn't comprehend the thought. Shoving his hands into his pocket, Andy began to walk slowly down the beach unaware that the sand around him had eyes.
The head of a sand demon reared up and nodded to the others before becoming flesh with the sand.
Thinking he'd sensed something Andy looked back and shrugged. Tiny ripples of sand followed in his footsteps while other ripples formed a huge gathered on his two sides and finally in the front forming a circle. Sand Demons were all around him.
Glancing down Andy noticed the rippling sand. Something was not right he surmised right before the sand at his feet gave way, allowing the sand demons to swallow him whole pulling his body into the depths of the sandy earth.
"ARGH!"
A second set of orbs appeared on the sand filtering into Prue and Paige. Amanda was standing between them holding their hands.
Prue looked around, seeing nothing "Are you sure this is the right spot?"
"Hims orbs landed right there on that rock" Amanda pointed as they slowly started across the sand.
"I don't see him anywhere" Paige commented looking around. "Maybe he saw us coming and went invisible."
"Hiding isn't Andy's style" Prue shook her head as one remaining sand demon quietly wiped the footprints from the sand. "Let's head on down the beach for a bit. If he's here he couldn't be too far a head of us"
"Okay, but only for a few minutes" Paige commented, "I've got to get back and check on my cake"
Several hundreds of feet below the earth the sand demons chuckled proudly as they stared at their newly formed creation. Andy's body was embedded into huge wall of wet sand, which displayed his stunned facial features perfectly. His hands were frozen displaying clawing fingers at the side of his face from where the Tracer had struggled briefly in effort to escape.
"Excellent work, Gideon should be quite pleased" If the demonic sand sculpture hadn't know any better he would have sworn that his new prisoner was an exact replica of Han Solo's carbon freezing from the movie The Empire Strikes Back
At the manor, Bane entered the solarium to find Gideon thumbing through a book. "Your just the wizard I wanted to see"
"I am not a wizard" Gideon replied setting the book at his side. "I am an Elder"
"Whatever, I just wanted to thank you for bailing me out with Prue earlier" Bane extended his hand only to have Gideon look down his nose at it.
"I have my reasons for wanting Prue to think that your intentions in trying to seduce her were for the greater good"
Feeling uneasy, Bane retracted his hand. "And just what are your reasons exactly?"
"You shall find out in good time, my lad" Gideon pulled his book back up to his face and turned his back leaving Bane to shrug.
Waiting a few moments, Gideon tossed the book aside and snapped his fingers calling upon a darklighter with a crossbow in hand. "Wait for a my signal," Gideon told the darklighter.
Waiting obediently the darklighter watched as Gideon glamoured into an exact clone of Andy. "There now we are just about ready" The sound of Paige's returning orbs were like music to Gideon's ears as he and the Dark Lighter started towards the living room.
If all went as planned Prue and her sister would watch Andy and a darklighter kill Bane. That would be all the fuel that Gideon would need to destroy what was left of Prue's trust in her beloved husband.
The darkligher nodded and together he and Gideon orbed into the living room forming a circle around Bane. "I thought I told you to keep your hands on my wife, Jessup!" Gideon/Andy snarled grabbing Bane by the lapels of his jacket.
"Prue's a big a girl, she does what she wants," Bane retorted unafraid as Andy/Gidoen twisted him around so that he was front-center of the darklighter.
From inside the kitchen, Paige had just taken her cake pans from the oven when she thought she heard a scuffle. "Did I just hear Andy?"
"It sounds like he's after Bane" Prue pushed through the kitchen door with Paige on her heels to see Andy/Gideon holding Bane in a chokehold. Swiftly the darklighter moved into position firing a single arrow straight at Bane's chest.
"Prue do something!" Paige screamed, only to have her cries pour out a minute too late.
As the arrow sank into Bane's chest Gideon/Andy made certain to make eyecontact with Prue before letting the whitelighters body slide lifelessly to the floor.
"Oh my God, they killed him" Paige pushed by her frozen sister shouting for Leo as Gideon/Andy and the darklighter orbed out.