Hey, I've returned with this story, I wrote this back in 2013 or 2014 I believe but took it down around 2018 because I lost the motivation to finish it. Now that I'm watching Charmed again after a five year hiatus and I do have the notes for the end of the story still, I'm inspired to complete this! I'd be amazed if anyone from back then is still here, feel free to reread if you want a refresher course; it's pretty much the same but I made some corrections on typos I didn't notice before! New readers, welcome and enjoy! Blessed be :)

A young woman stood on an overpass, blankly staring at the traffic below her. Cars zoomed left and right. Horns honked. It was a busy day in San Francisco. She put her hands on the ledge while closing her eyes. She was about to swing her legs over and push herself off, but she hesitated.

There were people she loved in the world, her sisters. She tried to think about them and she wanted to see them one last time to apologize for being so stupid. Then she remembered that they had their own lives now. He'd taken her back there and the house was filled with people at a party. They were having fun without her. Why would they want her back now after she'd basically abandoned them for him?

Her sisters might have been finished mourning her, but they would be pleasantly surprised if she showed up at any of their doorsteps suddenly. Maybe they had a faint belief in the fact that she was still out in the world, somewhere. Maybe there was hope. Maybe she backed away from the ledge and brushed her suicidal thoughts away before running to the police station as fast as she could with her long blonde hair flowing behind her. The fact that she ran away due to strength was simply a figment of her imagination. Really, she was frozen with fear on the overpass and was afraid to get down. Now, she was way past freaking out; she'd moved on to the brink of insanity.

She saw police cars and ambulances below her. A man was climbing up a ladder and she put her hands up to stop him. In her moment of panic, she forgot about appearances. She shook her head and ran down the steps, all the way to the ground. She didn't want to attract attention, but she'd already made the mistake of doing so. It was known that she could only see shadows, so hopefully, her husband wouldn't be too angry.

Her sunglasses were sliding down her nose and she stopped to gasp for breath. She heard people talking all around her. It would be on the news. The seemingly high-class beauty who was perfectly happy despite her two disabilities, tried to end her life. Nobody knew why. She was Whitaker Berman's wife, for Christ's sake. Who wouldn't be happy with a handsome and friendly guy like him? It made no sense. The thing was, he wasn't handsome at all, on the inside or out.

"Whitney?" His voice startled her. She jumped and was afraid to look behind her. He hugged her tightly and kissed her cheek. "Damn it, don't ever do that to me again! I swear to God, I was so worried about you!"

Reporters were crowding around them now, and she felt his grip grow painfully stronger. "Alright, we need some privacy!" he yelled at the crowd. "You can see she's all right! If anyone puts this on the news, I will sue them!"

That seemed to scare everyone away.

She shivered in his grasp. "I'm sorry, Whitaker. I don't know what I was thinking."

He roughly shoved her into his car and glared at her. She shrank into herself as he drove them home. They lived away from society to not risk any neighbors reporting him to the police. He would shoot a witness anyway, she knew that, but he still wanted to protect himself, in case a witness outsmarted him.

"You embarrassed me, you fucking whore!" he ranted at her. "It's bad enough that the public knows you've got Helen Keller syndrome, minus the deafness, but now they know you're bipolar! What the hell else is wrong with you? You know we are the most popular couple in San Francisco. You know that people pity you and envy you at the same time. You smile and wave at them, but you're unavailable because you belong to me! My friends are yours. My house is yours. I buy you everything you've ever wanted, and this is what I get in return?" He swung his fist into her face and her head hit the side window. She was dizzy and she could feel blood seeping out of the flesh below her eye. "Fuck you, woman!"

She knew what was coming. It wasn't just the usual nightly beating and rape; it would be like all the other times she tried to run away. He would act like a gentleman to her, make her serve him and his friends and then drug her with an alcoholic beverage while he let his friends, a disgusting gang, have turns with her. She didn't know why she even bothered thinking about getting out. It would be impossible, since gossip spread about her and him and he knew everyone and whoever saw her in a dangerous situation would tell him. She had once left the house while he was on a business trip, and his secretary ratted her out. She had once broken the tracking device he kept on various places of her body, and it shocked her so she couldn't move for a week. She had seen her sisters when they went to Quake, but, of course, they had not recognized her. Her disguise was flawless and her husband unknown to them. More than once she inwardly kicked herself for having never mentioned a word about him to them and then eloping. Now, because of that stupid mistake, all they saw was a handsome man with his wife out to lunch or dinner. They never saw their sister and neither did anyone else. She knew there was no way out after three failed attempts. Even they couldn't save her.

She found herself naked and locked in a basement hours later with duct tape around her mouth and her wrists and ankles bound with ropes. To ensure that she would never leave him again, he chained her to a pole in the basement. She cried desperately and struggled, but it was no use. She was trapped.

"How did you get away from her?" Darryl Morris asked his partner.

"It was easy. I finally got up the courage to control that bitch and break up with her. I was surprised she let me leave her. Then again, she threatened to ruin my career by telling everyone I cheated on her, and she's racist. That's a deal breaker for me; the woman I fall for cannot be a Nazi or a bigot. She is not fit to be a good girlfriend. She always seemed too evil...it was foreboding whenever she complained about anyone who wasn't straight, white, or Christian...even her name, Jade D'Mon, was a red flag. I thought she loved me…and I was different. She used me. All she wanted was sex, no strings attached."

"The divorce is final, then?"

"Our lawyer thought it was best that I put a restraining order on her because she would follow me to work, call me every five seconds, and hurt herself so she could tell people that I was abusive. She was stalking me, so I had to put a restraining order on her. I haven't heard from her since she ended up in prison."

"Thank God. I'm glad you're okay now, buddy."

"Now, we've got some more cases to solve, right?."

"You are so out of the loop, Trudeau."

"Three years of being in a bad marriage does do that to you."

The men were driving down the road darkened by late night shadows, when they saw a man setting fire on pieces of paper that were coming off of tree trunks and metal poles.

"You better go check that out, Andy. That is not normal what he's doing...he's destroying missing person signs!"

"He's gonna get arrested for arson." Andy turned on the police sirens and the arsonist stopped in his tracks. He dropped the match, stomped on it, sprinted to his car with the burnt pieces of paper in his hands, and sped away. Andy and Felix quickly followed him to an empty area with a single house. They were quick to recognize the house as Whitaker Berman's. He was, after all, the wealthiest military veteran in the city. So why then would he feel the need to commit a crime?

"When Berman goes in, we knock," Darryl told Andy.

"How could anyone look up to him?" Andy asked himself, but Felix answered anyway.

"This city is probably too damn naive to see his true colors."

"To me, he's just a stuck up bastard dying for attention and using his poor wife to get it all." Andy groaned and they prepared to arrest the guy.

"People are instantly attracted to a blonde, blind-mute woman. They want to help her, and they want to impress him. So they try getting close to her, but all anyone knows about her is that her name is Whitney Berman. She just sits next to him with this..."

"Fake smile," Andy finished for his friend. "Her world is dark. She's got a pompous ass for a husband and he's the only one who really talks to her. He doesn't seem to let anyone else in their lives."

They knocked on his door, and Whitaker let them in with a smirk. "Evening, officers, what can I do for you?"

"You're under arrest for arson," Andy muttered.

"I didn't even see you guys!"

Darryl ignored him. "Are you intoxicated?"

"What?" he spluttered. "For fuck's sake, no!"

They heard thumping in one of the rooms below and then a scream. It was a woman's shrill shriek that echoed throughout the house. The banging continued while the inspectors looked at Whitaker quizzically.

"Where is your wife?" Andy asked.

Whitaker suddenly got defensive. "In the basement! She's trying to find something and she must have felt a rodent or whatever."

"Aren't you gonna go help her?" Darryl asked.

"I thought she was mute," Andy said plainly.

"She is, but she can make noises. She figures things out on her own. Don't worry about her."

"Please help me," the woman faintly begged. "Oh God, please, please...I'm stuck down here..."

The voice was muffled and scratchy, like she had a cold or something was blocking her mouth, and talking at all did not fit Andy's or Rikerson's definition of mute. She never spoke, but she was saying full sentences now. They saw Whitaker sweating and he took a few full swigs of his whiskey before he offered another explanation.

"She knows all the rooms in this house, even if she can't see. She's not completely mute, as you can tell, but that's her voice. It's like a sick person's."

Andy recognized the voice for some reason. "Mind if we meet her in person? I've been out of the state for quite a while, and Rikerson has been so busy covering my shifts that I have no idea what she looks like. I've just heard nice things about her and she sounds...interesting."

"Get out!" Whitaker suddenly barked at them. "She can't use stairs and I need to help her, just get out for a minute!"

"I'll handle him, you check out the scene. This sounds bad, very bad," Darryl whispered.

"You think he kidnapped his own wife?"

"Hey, it happens. He was trying to get rid of the missing person papers, and there's a woman down there screaming her head off. The pieces connect."

"You can't go down there! She's scared of everyone except me! If you search my house, I can sue you!"

"No, you can't, because I have a search warrant." Andy held it up as proof.

Darryl handcuffed Berman and led him to the back of the cop car while Andy followed the whimpering sounds to a closed door.

He wanted to kick down the door, but so he wouldn't scare her, he unlocked it, felt around for a light switch, and walked down the stairs when he found one.

There were footfalls. Heavy footfalls. The kind that boots made when stomping down a staircase. A light was now on, and she squinted. When she saw the man's pant-covered legs emerge, she covered herself as best she could with her folded-up legs and held herself together. She leaned her forehead against the cool metal pole and her sunglasses clanked on it. Her back was facing the stranger and she was shaking all over.

"Don't hurt me..." she cried beneath the duct tape.

"Oh my God..." she heard behind her. Whoever it was took in a sharp breath of air. A calloused, warm hand softly touched her shoulder, and she yelped in surprise.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," the mystery man apologized. "I'm here to help you." He got in front of her and started unbinding her. He cut the ropes with a knife while staring at the ground intently. When she got one of her wrists free, she ripped the tape off her mouth. It stung like hell, but at least she could talk more clearly.

Wait, she wasn't supposed to talk. This may have just been a trick, one of his friends she'd never met, was here to have his way with her, and he needed her unchained, but then why would he respect her privacy and have a certain familiarity to his tone of voice? Nothing made sense.

She clamped her mouth shut and continued breathing through her nose. He turned around and excused himself. Five minutes later, he came down with a blanket and covered her with it. He lifted her small body into his arms and carried her up the stairs. He sat her down on her bed and took his own place standing beside her.

"Where do you keep all of your clothes? I can help you pack up. My partner has already arrested your husband, so you're okay here, unless you'd rather stay somewhere else?"

Finally, she dared a look at his face. Tears slipped down her cheeks when she saw him. She hadn't seen him in ages, eighteen years to be exact, and he was here, of all places. She knew then that she could expose her secret. She wriggled her arm out of the blanket he had her snuggled in and took off her sunglasses and wig in one move. His eyes widened and he put his fist to his mouth. Her sunglasses and wig were hiding two black eyes and a huge gash on her forehead. She had bruises all over her body and he wondered how anyone could hurt such a lovely, sweet woman.

"Halliwell Manor."

"Prue?" Andy asked incredulously while looking closer at her. She hid her face with her chest-length brown hair self-consciously. He still was the most perfect man to ever live on this earth and his features were as handsome as she'd remembered. She, however, was a different person. She was now worthless and no longer beautiful. She didn't know why he was even still in the same room as her. She was humiliated at her appearance. Even her eyes had lost the vibrancy in them.

She didn't lift her head for quite a long time. He sighed with sadness at her pain.

"Prue, just look at me in my eyes."

"I can't," she said in one exhale. "Not after...what I've done."

"You didn't do anything."

"Right, I did nothing useful in this life. Our-" she gestured between herself and Andy "-relationship got fucked up because of me. My face and body are fucked up because I married him. My girls and my mom think I'm a fuck up since I let them think I was dead. So yeah, I didn't do a goddamn thing," she said bitterly.

"That's not what I meant! We had a mutual breakup because I was going to police academy in upstate New York and you were off to college here. We just drifted apart, but fate brought us back together. You tried to move on with Lee because you thought he loved you. How were you supposed to know he was a bastard? Your girls and your mom miss you more than anything, I can tell you that right now. In fact, I just saw your ex burning papers outside that were stapled to trees and taped to poles. I'm a police officer, I know a missing person sign when I see one."

"That's how you found me," she figured out aloud.

He nodded. "I admit...I have been wondering where you must have ventured off to after college."

"Piper and I lived in an apartment in Brooklyn and then I just moved back in with her at the place where we grew up. Phoebe joined us when she was seventeen. I had a baby from a deadbeat asshole, also named Lee. She's eleven now. It's been nine years since I last saw my people." Prue hugged her knees to her chest. "Let's go see them...I want to get out of this nightmarish house...I can't stand it any longer."

"You should get dressed first." Andy gestured to her with a sheepish grin.

"Right..."

"Have you eaten anything in the last twelve hours?"

"Not much, why?"

"When I carried you, you felt weightless, and I was worried. Had he been trying to starve you to death?"

"That, and beat me to oblivion."

Andy gritted his teeth. "Shouldn't I take you to a doctor?"

"I'm fine, really. I never need a doctor, since he says my injuries are always healing themselves." Prue leaned back on her hands and let out a loud groan. "Oh god, it hurts everywhere," she said on the verge of tears. She bit her lip, but ended up making the cut bleed. "Oh, shit!" She buried her face into her knees and her shoulders jumped up and down while she wept. "I'm so sorry! You should just leave...I'm such a bad luck charm! I'm a horrible wife! No wonder he had to punish me! I deserved it...I killed my grandma...my own parents abandoned me when I was a baby… nobody cares about me...I made him angry..." She screamed until her stomach hurt and balled her hands into fists. At this point, she was choking on her tears, which were streaming down her cheeks. "Andy, you don't need to look at me...please...I'm hopeless..."

Every word she said broke Andy's heart a little more. He felt a surge of anger towards her husband and hatred boiled in the pit of his stomach. He'd never had this much rage before, but right now, he was ready to follow Rikerson to the station and kill Dixon for doing this to his first love. He kicked the wall hard and imagined it was Dixon.

"I'm sorry for making you so mad, Andy," a little voice said quietly. "I'm just so scared...if he finds you in here with me..."

He paused. "Prue, no, it's not you, I could never be mad at you. Let me get you some ice. My partner arrested your husband."

"Thank god," she said with relief filling her tone.

He dashed out of the room and returned with three bags of ice. Prue was already standing at her closet and looking for a clothing article while wincing at her hand movements.

"I'll help you pack your clothes. You need ice."

"What I need is something to wear that doesn't make me say 'ow' when I put it on!"

"What about a dress?"

Prue nodded silently and took the bags of ice from Andy. She rested her wrists on the bags and put a bag of ice over her whole face while laying down on the bed.

He pulled a cotton purple dress out of her closet and set it down next to her. He stuffed a suitcase with all of her clothes and helped her sit up. He put the dress over her head and she slipped her arms through the sleeves. She threw the blanket aside as the skirt of the dress came down to her knees. She blushed because she knew she didn't have underpants on.

"It goes nicely with your eyes...brings out the bright blue in them."

She nodded and gave him a small smile. "While I appreciate you doing all this for me, can I have some privacy?" She rolled off the bed and landed on her feet. He left and she put her underpants on while wincing.

"Alright, I'm finished," she announced rather awkwardly. She glanced around her room one last time as Andy came back in and shuddered involuntarily. She needed to get out. "You can take me to my sisters' house now."

"Will do." Andy wheeled the suitcase outside with Prue following him.

"Where's your car?"

A breeze whipped through the air and she shuddered.

"I guess Rikerson took it and he hasn't come back yet."

"Who's he?"

"My partner. He arrested your, uh..."

"Ex husband," Prue finished with a roll of her eyes. "I know, you've told me before."

Morris pulled up next to them and Andy sat in the backseat beside Prue. He opened the door for her, but she wasn't expecting he'd be sitting with her. She couldn't think of anything to say. The suitcase was in between them, which made them not so close together. That was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because she didn't want to be touched by any men whatsoever. On the flip side it was bad because she felt like Andy could protect her if Morris tried anything, but since he was blocked by the suitcase, he wouldn't be fast enough. After all, Andy was her savior. She was on edge until her house came into view. Thousands of memories came flooding back to her.

Patty dropped three-year-old Piper off at nursery school and she and Prue were nervous about being separated from each other. Prue was only four, but since she'd be five before December, she was allowed to start kindergarten this year.

"Bye, sweetheart, I love you," Patty told Piper and showered her with kisses. Prue clung to her mother's leg and gave her sister a one-armed hug. "Love you, sissy," Prue said in a wavering voice.

"Love sissy too," Piper replied. "Hug again!"

Prue bent down to Piper's level and hugged her as tight as her little girl arms could go. "I'll miss you."

"Miss you more."

Patty beamed at the girls' interactions with tears in her eyes. "I've got to take Prue to school now. Your grams will pick you up at noon when Prue's class is finished, okay, baby?"

Piper nodded. "Okay, Patty!"

"Give me a kiss!" Patty knelt down alongside Prue.

"Mwah!" Piper said aloud and gave her a wet kiss, and Patty pulled one of her pigtails.

"Now, give your big sissy one last kiss."

Piper kissed Prue's cheeks and wiped her eyes. "Bye, love you!"

Patty scooped up Prue and they waved at Piper while walking out the door. Prue didn't really think about anything else except Piper until she got into her classroom and had to greet the teacher.

"Hello, Prue! How are you today?" she asked cheerily.

"Hi," Prue mumbled grumpily.

"Prue, say hi to your new teacher," Patty instructed her.

"I did."

"Politely, though, please. I'm sorry, she misses her sister..."

"It's totally understandable. Prue, you can sit right here. Would you like your mommy to stay until class starts?"

"Sure."

The door opened again and Officer Trudeau came in with his son, who was dressed up as a cowboy. "Freeze!" he yelled at two kids who were play fighting. He held up a toy gun. "Bang, you're a goner."

"Andy," his father scolded him, "don't start playing until you say hello to your new teacher."

"I just said the same thing to my daughter, except for it wasn't 'don't start playing', it was 'say hi to your new teacher politely.' Excuse us for having kids with bad manners. I should have expected it, though, it's her first day being apart from the girl she thinks of as her little sister," Patty explained to the man.

"I'm gonna be like you when I grow up, Daddy!"

The officer ruffled his son's hair and glanced over at Patty. "Oh, poor girl."

"I'm Patty, by the way." They shook hands. "My daughter is over there, her name is Prue."

"This is Andy."

The teacher interrupted the introductions. "I think everyone is here. The only empty spots for you, Andy, are next to Prue and Susan."

"Eeew, I don't like boys, they have cooties!" a little blonde girl screeched.

Prue wrinkled her nose. "That's not nice!"

Andy shrugged and went over to the seat next to Prue. "Hi, wanna play dress up today?"

"You're allowed to wear costumes to school? I thought I had to stop because I'm a big girl now, that's what Mommy said," Prue said sadly.

"I never said you couldn't wear costumes, honey," Patty said and wrapped her arms around her daughter's shoulders. "Now, I will see you after school. You have fun, okay? I don't want to hear about any tantrums. Behave, my little one." She touched Prue's nose, which made the child giggle.

"Okay, Mommy, love you, bye!"

"Promise?"

"I promise!"

Andy's father kissed the top of his son's head. "Don't be too rough with the girls, buddy."

"Daddy, if I'm gonna be a cop like you, I want to protect people, not hurt them!"

"Yeah, he won't hurt me. I'll kick him to the other side of the room! Ka-pow!" Prue mimicked an explosion sound and hit the bottom of her desk with her feet.

"Girl power, all right, that's my sweetheart. Bye!" Both of the parents left the room and class began. The teacher clapped her hands and asked who knew the ABCs.

"Are you kidding? That's easy!" Prue pointed out while rolling her eyes, and Andy nodded in agreement.

After that, the kids had to partner up and color a picture.

"Why are you drawing a sad face over the girls?" Andy asked Prue.

Prue pointed to the peach stick figure with brown hair. "That's my sister. She's in preschool and she can't go here with me. I'm sad." She tapped her finger on the peach stick figure with black hair. "And that's me. We hold hands a lot. Sisters forever."

"Well, my mommy and daddy always say to look on the sunny side. We're gonna be here for a long time and your sister can visit us."

"Mommy says she's gonna be here in two years. That's a long time." Prue sighed and put her chin in her hands.

"You can see her your whole life, she's your sister forever. That's the sunny side."

"Oh yeah! Thanks, Andy!" Prue smiled and hugged him. "You're my other best friend."

"So are you."

Eight years had passed and it was the middle school dance. Andy had asked Prue to it and she was nervous. She liked him and wanted to wear something pretty, but she didn't want to appear as if she was trying too hard to impress him. Penny picked out a blouse and a long skirt for her, but it was too plain-looking. After hours of trying on clothes, she found the perfect outfit-a red sequined knee-length dress with spaghetti straps and a black cardigan. Patty took her to a beauty salon to get her hair, makeup, and nails done, since Prue said that's what the girls her age were doing these days.

"Thanks, Grams," she said gratefully and hugged her.

"Anything for my lovely girl. Let me take a picture of you."

Prue smiled for the camera and then the phone rang. Piper and Phoebe rushed to get it, but Piper picked it up first.

"Ooooh, it's a boy calling for Prue!" she said loudly with a giggle. "It's Andy!"

"Shh!" Prue whispered while she felt her face heat up. "Shut up!"

"Andy and Prue, sitting in a tree-" Phoebe started to sing, but Prue dragged the seven-year-old over to a couch and tickled her until she stopped talking and began to cackle hysterically.

"Don't embarrass me! Piper, take care of her," Prue said exasperatedly. She hoped her makeup wasn't sweating off her face. Piper handed Prue the phone and laughed underneath the palm of her hand, so Prue pushed her away.

"Andy, hi," she said quickly and turned her back on the girls she considered sisters.

"Hey, you ready? My dad's ready to take me to your house."

"I'm so ready I could burst! I'm sorry about that noise earlier, little sisters are annoying."

"It's okay. I'll see you soon! Bye!"

"Bye!"

Muffled laughter became loud as soon as Prue hung up the phone. She pointed at the both of them and growled. "You two! Out, now!"

"Uh, oh, we're in trouble..." Phoebe moaned.

"At least it's just Andy. He's our childhood friend," Piper said and led Phoebe upstairs. "Come on, we can play a game and leave Prue alone."

"He's not just a friend," Prue muttered under her breath. "I love him."

It seemed that Andy felt the same way about her, the way they danced all night and came close to their first kiss, until a chaperone warned them about personal space and reminded them that they were thirteen, as if that was too young for romance to begin.

That chaperone didn't know how close the two of them really were. They finally had their long-awaited kiss after Prue's cheerleading practice in freshman year of high school.

Prue blinked a few times, trying to snap herself back to the real world, where she and Andy were no longer that way anymore, and probably would never be again.

When they got to the house, Andy led Prue to the door with her suitcase in his hand. His other hand was at the small of her back and he kept looking over at her. She took one careful step after another and went to ring the doorbell, but stopped in her tracks. Her whole body was shaking and she tried not to fall into him.

"What's wrong?"

"This whole thing seems...silly. They've all...moved on. I'm just a memory to them, I guess."

"They're still looking for you. You'll be their surprise."

"I'll hide behind you, ring the doorbell," she said nervously.

So he did. They heard the chime and then feet running. The red door marked 1329 swung open and a little girl with curly brown ringlets stared up at Andy with huge, curious eyes.

"Who are you, mister?" she asked.

"Andy Trudeau. Are your parents home?"

Oh boy. Prue mouthed to herself. Keep it together.

"Mommy! Daddy! Come quick! A man is here to see you!" The little girl jumped up and down.

"Melinda, honey, who is it?" a woman called out.

Prue peeked around Andy and saw her sisters and an unknown man walking towards them. At once, the other women's eyes grew as round as saucers.

"Andy! Long time, no see!" Piper greeted him. She put her hands on her daughter's shoulders. Piper had bangs, her hair was to her shoulders, and she was single and shy the last time Prue was here. Now her hair was longer, almost chest length, she was pregnant, holding hands with a man, they had glistening diamond rings on their fingers symbolizing they were either engaged or married, and a child was calling her 'mommy'. How did this happen?

Phoebe was right behind them. She had hair the same length as Prue's but it was curly and blonde. She, too, had a wedding band, and a sleeping baby girl in her arms. "What brings you here tonight? Did you just join the force?" She shifted the baby more onto her hip so she could shake his hand.

"No, actually, I stumbled upon my first case just now. I was on the Portland police force until I met my ex wife three years ago. That was a disaster, so I came back here. I also brought someone with me, and she's here to stay." He guided Prue closer to the doorstep. "This who you were looking for?"

Piper and Phoebe gasped. "Prue?"