A/N: And she lives! Hello, people. :) It's been a while. I hope you guys enjoy reading this story; I certainly enjoyed writing it!
Emma Alonso was six years old when she first saw pictures of the Baia do Sancho beach in Fernando de Noronha, Brazil. It was Show & Tell in first grade and one of the rich girls had passed around some Polaroids from her family's summer vacation. This beach was spectacular, not only because of how it looked, but because of how it made Emma feel. The Baia do Sancho represented happiness to the little girl. She didn't think about it all the time, but it was something that popped back up in her brain every once in a while.
Around the time she started middle school, she started having a recurring dream about the Baia do Sancho, a very bittersweet recurring dream. Every time her life was going really well, she'd dream about herself on that beach, the crystal clear water engulfing her body, the mushy wet sand squishing between her toes, the marvelous surrounding mountains the true picture of nature... And every time she woke up, she felt an emptiness inside of her, this mocking void that said Your reality will never be as good as your dream.
For the next five years, it never was. But today? Today she was happy to wake from the images her mind had conjured up during her sleep. Because for the first time in her life, her reality was better than her dream.
Today she woke up in the arms of the love of her life.
Emma smiled and snuggled up closer to Jax Novoa's bare chest. Between their body heat and his bed covers, she was warm and cozy and peaceful.
Jax stirred at her movement, stretching his arms and groaning. The moment his eyes opened, Emma grinned and said, "Morning."
Immediately a smile lit up his face. "Well. You're the most beautiful sight I've woken up to in...," he pretended to think about it, "forever."
The witch giggled and climbed on top of him, leaning down to give him a slow, passionate kiss. He pulled the comforter up a bit more so she wouldn't get cold; her only clothing was her bra and panties. "Speaking of forever..." She intertwined her fingers with his, loving how safe it made her feel. "I think that's how long we should stay here."
The wizard chuckled and hooked a loose lock of gorgeous dark wavy hair behind her ear. "I wish, Em. I wish. But my dad will be home with Grace and Kenzie by noon, not to mention we have school."
Emma groaned, but inside she wasn't complaining. Sure, she would've liked to spend the entire day laying in bed with Jax, kissing and cuddling, watching TV and movies, eating whatever food he had in his kitchen. But so much had already gone her way in the past twenty-four hours: she'd turned Phillip into a real boy, she'd survived the world trying to balance things out because she'd turned Phillip into a real boy, she'd made peace with Mia, she'd stood up to Agamemnon and won, and best of all, she'd ended the love triangle drama by choosing her true love.
When the two guys had stood before her, waiting for her to make her choice, it was like Daniel Miller hadn't even been in the room. The only person Emma could see was Jax. It was clear as day: she loved him. It was the most real thing she'd ever felt in her life. When she reached her hand out to take Jax's, every molecule of her being had screamed FINALLY! Everything was finally right.
Kissing in the pool was the picture-perfect romantic moment.
Discovering Jax had his house to himself for the night was even better.
Andi agreed to cover for Emma in a heartbeat; she kind of had to, considering her boyfriend wouldn't be alive if not for Emma. While Francisco thought his daughter was spending the night at her bestie's for a last-minute emergency study session, she was really having the most beautiful, passionate night of her life with her soulmate.
Well, the most beautiful, passionate night of her life until they were old enough to get married.
The point was, Emma was well-aware she had blessings covering her from head to toe; it would be selfish to ask for more.
She sighed. "I know..."
"How much longer until school starts?"
Emma lazily rolled over to her own side of the bed to check Jax's alarm clock. "Ten minutes."
There was a very brief moment of silence before either of them registered what she'd said, and then:
"WHAT?!"
Emma scrambled onto the floor, grabbed the backpack Andi had dropped off for her last night, and dug around inside until she found her phone. Sure enough, Andi had been calling and texting for the past hour.
Andi: Just woke up. How bout you guys?
Andi: Emmaaa you haven't responded. Tell me you guys aren't being creepy...
Andi: Okay, you can tell me you guys are being creepy, just tell me you guys are AWAKE.
Andi: EMMA.
Andi: Jax isn't answering his phone, either.
Andi: WAKE UP!
Andi: I've called you each ten times. Is your ringer off? Tell me your phone didn't die.
Andi: I'm leaving for school. If your dad sees me without you, I'm telling him you have the runs.
Andi: I'm getting closer to the school. Currently terrified of your father.
Andi: Lmaooo Daniel's bike isn't here. He musta stayed home to cry.
Emma's hands trembled as she typed a response.
Emma: We forgot to set Jax's alarm and slept in! We'll be there as soon as we can! Soooo sorry!
"Dammit!" she heard her boyfriend exclaim. She looked up to find him doing his signature move and... doing his signature move. That was all that was happening. Whatever spell he'd tried to cast hadn't worked. "Mia's crystal sucks ass."
"Lemme try." Jax's powers were temporarily weakened from having been around the Crystal de Caballero so much yesterday, but the Chosen One's weren't. Yes, the spell to make Phillip human had taken its toll on her. Yes, being sucked inside a video game and running from zombies had made it worse. But that all happened over twelve hours ago; maybe Emma's strength had returned. The witch stood and did her signature move as she spoke, "Jax and I need a special tool/To help us get ready for school!"
Nothing.
And then Jax was running toward his closet in his boxers and Emma was frantically trying to pull the uniform Andi had packed for her out of the backpack. Guess we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way...
Pacing outside on Jax's front porch was none other than Daniel. His bike was leaning against the banister, helmet hanging off the handlebars, waiting for its owner to take it to school.
It'd been fifteen minutes.
Daniel had been a mix of emotions since yesterday in his garage when Emma made her decision. The moment he saw Emma take Jax's hand, something inside of him died. When the two magical beings disappeared, he felt empty. His mom had walked in a moment later, asking where his friends had gone. Apparently the look on his face said it all because Christine softly said "Oh, honey" and pulled him in for a hug.
The teenage boy part of Daniel wanted to pull away and play it off as though he was perfectly fine. But the vulnerable part of Daniel really needed a hug right then, so he hugged her back. She didn't ask questions; she already knew. Must've been that motherly instinct she always insisted she had. At last she looked at her eldest son and said, "You'll be okay. I know it doesn't feel like it right now, Danny, but one day you'll meet someone who will mean more to you than Emma ever did. I promise."
She was right: it certainly didn't feel like it. Then again, Christine had once been a teenager herself, and now here she was, a grown woman with a husband and kids. Maybe she was speaking from experience.
"Thanks, Mom," Daniel managed. "I'm gonna go take a shower."
She smiled, pinched his cheek, and let him go.
Daniel spent most of his shower not feeling much of anything, being numb. Once he was dry and dressed, he mulled over how tomorrow would go. Emma and Jax would pull up to Iridium High on his dirt bike, hold hands in the hallway, kiss at her locker, sit together at lunch... Gigi would be sure to interview "Jemma" and "the newly single Daniel Miller," and probably ask him out while she was at it...
And then a new thought occurred to him: he and Jax were on the same swim team.
This wasn't like before. This was not the situation they'd had since the beginning of sophomore year up until earlier that day. The love triangle was over; Emma was no longer interested in both of the guys. She had chosen, and her choice was not Daniel. There was nothing left to fight or compete about. If Daniel acted like an immature moron tomorrow, Jax wouldn't do anything back because he'd already won.
The only thing that was still in Daniel's control was how he himself chose to behave. And the last thing he wanted to do was promote disunity between his teammates by creating drama that wasn't there. He was the team captain; he needed to set a good example.
So that night, as he lay awake in bed, Daniel decided on a course of action. Tomorrow morning before school, he'd stop by Jax's house. He'd tell him he didn't want them to be enemies anymore and that he'd like to be civil.
And that's what he did. Well, the first part. As hard as he tried, Daniel could not make himself ring Jax's doorbell. Part of him was afraid Jax would laugh in his face. Part of him was desperately trying to hold onto the feud he'd been having with the Australian for so long now.
"Come on, Killer Miller," he chanted to himself. "You are a man. And a real man does not engage in petty fights with his ex's new boyfriend. If he acts like a jerk, at least you tried." Daniel stopped pacing and walked up to the doorbell. His finger was slowly inching closer and closer to the object when—
Daniel was suddenly inside Jax's house, glued to a living room wall. "Wh... What just..."
"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" demanded a cold male Australian voice. Daniel looked up to find what appeared to be an older version of Jax casually striding toward him, hands folded behind his back. "A peeping Tom?"
"My hair looks terrible!" Emma moaned, checking it out in the mirror on Jax's dresser. She was hopping on her sock-clad right foot, trying to put her other sock on her left foot.
"Please, it looks fine." Jax was in the midst of tying his shoelaces (he'd gotten better over the summer). "Done!" He grabbed his backpack and slipped his arms through the straps."Come on, Em, let's..." His face fell.
"What?!" she panicked, jamming her right foot into her right flat. She grabbed her own backpack then shoved her left foot into her left flat. "What's wrong?"
"Your shirt's inside out."
"Oh, no..." Emma reached for the hem and began to tug the shirt up, but before she could get it over her head, Jax grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door. "Hey!"
"We have five minutes to get to school, which is on the other side of town." Jax grabbed both helmets hanging on the backside of his door and tossed one to Emma. "We can worry about your shirt later."
"N-No, sir, I—" Daniel began, but was curtly cut off.
"Who are you?" Mr. Novoa demanded, examining the boy like he was a rare breed of insect. "Did the Witches Council send you to spy on me?"
"No! I-I'm not even a wizard! Watch!" Daniel did his best to make a face that indicated he was thinking hard, but all he looked was constipated. "See? I'm still stuck here!"
The man cocked an eyebrow. "You're a human? Ha! Even more unfortunate."
He rose his hand to cast what probably would have been a horrible spell, but Daniel quickly stopped him by blurting, "I just came over to talk to your son!"
Mr. Novoa's hand froze. "My son," he sneered, "is at school. The same place I'm guessing you should—"
"I can't go into school with it inside out!" a voice Daniel recognized as Emma's wafted into the room. "My dad will—"
"Just have Maddie change it before we go in." That voice belonged to Jax.
"I can't! I already gave her an adoptive step-brother; if I start asking for magical favors, she'll kill me."
"Well, here. At least let me—"
Jemma arrived in the Novoas' living room with Emma's shirt around her head, her purple bra exposed to the world. Jax froze in horror upon realizing they were not alone.
"Why did we stop?" Emma asked, struggling to remove the shirt herself now that her boyfriend had quit helping.
"S-Sir," Jax stammered. "You're home."
"Your dad is in the room?!" Emma tried to yank her shirt back down, but it wasn't working.
"Oh, for the love of the realm..." Mr. Novoa shielded his eyes and threw a spell Emma's way. Instantly, her shirt was right-side out and covering her body.
"Thanks," the witch squeaked, blushing redder than a tomato.
"Um..." Jax tried not to focus on his father's facial expression. It wasn't straight anger; it wasn't straight amusement. It was a mixture of them both, plus so many other emotions, none of which were good. "I-I thought you weren't getting home until noon."
"And I thought you slept here alone last night."
Both halves of Jemma had absolutely no response to that.
"Where are the twins?" Jax finally managed.
"School. Same place you three should be."
Emma blinked. "Three?"
Mr. Novoa motioned across the room.
For the first time, Jemma noticed Daniel's presence. The boy on the wall was staring at the scene before him with an unreadable expression of his own.
Emma's eyes practically popped out of her head. "Daniel! What are you doing here?"
"I found him lurking on the front porch," Mr. Novoa said, releasing the boy from the wall with a wave of his hand. "Jax, you know this string bean?"
"Uh, yeah, he's on the team with me..."
His father squinted his eyes. "What team?"
Jax clenched his fist. "The swim team. You know, that thing I've been on since the first grade?"
"Whatever. All of you, go to school. And you two," he pointed at Jemma, "better be being careful."
Emma's face got impossibly redder.
Jax was equally horrified. "We are—"
"Because I do not want to be a grandfather at age forty-one."
"Dually noted..."
"What was that?"
"Nothing, nothing." He took his girlfriend by the hand. "Come on, Em."
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Novoa," Emma awkwardly called over her shoulder as her boyfriend led her out the door.
Once the couple was on his dirt bike, Jax said, "Well. That was mortifying."
"Yep." Emma wrapped her arms around his torso. "There's no way we'll be on time now."
Daniel appeared on the porch just as Jax revved his bike's engine. He watched as the magical beings took off down the street. They looked like two lovers riding off into the sun at the end of a movie.
The human silently climbed onto his own bike, fastened his helmet, and started for school.
Jax and Emma arrived at Iridium High ten minutes past the late bell. However, all was good: Andi had recruited Nurse Lily to distract Mr. Alonso while she and Phillip distracted Mrs. Jones. Jemma was able to sneak into their first period before the frazzled woman took roll.
Daniel, on the other hand... Daniel arrived twenty minutes late and had to deal with a detention. And Mia, who made it a point to ignore him for all of science class.
The rest of the day passed on much like he'd expected: Jax and Emma were extremely couple-y and Gigi tried to interview them. But the moment Emma made it clear she did not want to be filmed, Jax told Sebastian what he could do with his camera, causing the boy to run off in fear. A then cameraman-less Gigi stormed off in a huff, muttering something about "setting up the livestream through my phone next time" and "camera guys are so fickle these days."
She was too busy pouting to harass Daniel.
Small mercies.
The school day came to a close and it was time for swim practice. Emma and Jax made out for way longer than necessary outside the locker room door, with her saying she'd miss him and him promising he'd be over to visit later. This only held a small part of Daniel's attention, though, because most of it was on Andi who had just waltzed into the guys' locker room while Diego was naked. The Kanay shrieked and hurriedly yanked his dark blue striped boxers back up over his hips.
"Andi, you can't be in here," Daniel told her, crossing his arms.
"Yeah, yeah. Phillip!"
The zombie-turned-human walked into the room in a ninety percent normal manner. He still walked with a bit of a slow, unsure step, but hey, it had only been a day; he'd improve.
"Phillip's joining the team," Andi announced, patting Daniel on the arm. "Make him feel welcome."
"But—"
"No buts, Miller!" And then she disappeared across the hall, into the girls' locker room.
By this time, Emma was gone. Jax walked into the room and grinned. "Phillip! Welcome to the team!"
Phillip smiled and gave the Australian a fist bump.
"Is no one else bothered that Andi saw my bare butt?!" Diego shrieked from the corner.
Daniel slowly exhaled and gathered his swim equipment. "Phillip, come with me. I'll get you a pair of Sharks swim trunks and goggles..."
Originally, Monday's swim practice was to consist of easy laps around the pool for two hours followed by races for the last half hour. However, with a new addition to the team who had never gone swimming in his life, the plan changed. Daniel had Andi, Diego, and Jax do their usual laps while he taught Phillip the basics. And to his amazement, Phillip was an extremely fast learner. In fact, he was one of the best swimmers Daniel had ever seen.
"Oh, he's doing great!" Andi gushed. It was break time, but Phillip insisted he wasn't tired and wanted to keep honing his craft.
Daniel watched from the edge of the pool, just in case he needed to do an emergency rescue. Though from the looks of it, that wouldn't be necessary. "Yeah," he admitted, "he actually is."
Diego jogged over from the bench where he and Jax had been sitting. He had a stopwatch and a clipboard in hand. "Okay. I did the math and if Phillip keeps going at the rate he's at now, he can compete on Saturday's meet."
"Against the Dolphins?!" Andi exclaimed. "Seriously?"
"Yep. He'd be right behind Daniel."
"Whoa whoa." Jax was suddenly walking toward them, clearly displeased. "That's my spot. I've been working for weeks to compete in this meet."
Diego and Andi looked to Daniel for the verdict.
Phillip arrived at their end of the pool. He dipped under water, turned around, kicked off the edge, and started for the other end of the pool once more.
Daniel looked at Jax who looked like he was prepared to fight him on this. He expected Daniel to take this way from him. They all did. It would be so easy, too. After the utter heart break and humiliation Daniel had experienced this morning, it would be so easy to get back at the wizard. See how he liked having something he cared about—
Stop. Daniel caught himself thinking in those childish thought patterns again and quickly cut himself off. Because honestly? He was tired of being immature.
"Nah, that spot belongs to Jax," he said with a slight shrug of the shoulders.
"What?!" all three of them asked.
"But..." Andi shook her head. "But you hate—"
"We're a team, and as the captain of this team, I say we play fair. Jax has been swimming since the first grade; he's earned that spot."
Diego and Andi were too stunned to respond. Jax managed a very suspicious "Thanks?"
Daniel didn't say anything, only returned to watching over Phillip.
When practice was over, the guys got dressed in silence, besides when Diego randomly mentioned a test or something that had happened with Maddie that day. Phillip was the first to get changed, eager to walk home with Andi. Diego finished up next and exited the locker room.
That left Daniel and Jax.
At first neither of them said a word. Daniel packed up his bag, checking to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. Jax was done before him and was heading for the door when he paused.
"Daniel."
The boy slowly turned, expressionless.
"What was it you wanted?" When all he got in response was a blink, he said, "This morning at my house. My dad said he found you on our porch. You must've been there for a reason. What was it you wanted?"
Daniel closed up his gym locker and slung his bag over his shoulder. "None of your concern." He faced the wizard, braced himself, and added, "Just like your relationship with Emma is none of mine."
Jax's eyes narrowed, searching his rival of the past year for any signs of dishonesty.
He came up with none.
"You mean that?"
"I mean that."
The Australian slowly nodded and said, "Sounds good. See you tomorrow." He turned around, pushed through the door, and left the building. Maybe to stop home real quick; maybe to go directly to Emma's. Daniel didn't know. He didn't need to.
It was none of his concern.