The sun beats down against us through the window pane, wrapping us in a comfortable spring warmth. My hand is wrapped in Sonny's with her head resting against my chest. We're lying in the window seat at her house watching the calm suburbia LA traffic flitter about. I feel every fallen breath and every deep sigh. Her thumb taps against the palm of my hand in a little beat. The house is silent, but comfortably so. I let my head rest against the frame and close my eyes, soaking in the moment, trying to make every memory I can; I want to remember the heat of the sun, the feel of her soft skin, and the ups and downs of every long, relaxing breath she takes.

"I'm sorry," I whisper into her ear, letting my lips brush against her cheek. I pull my head back up and close my eyes again. "I know Chad doesn't meant anything." Her body twists and she turns to look at me. I watch Sonny's eyes – those two brown orbs with black dots in the middle – trace the outline of my face, only stopping to look at my own eyes for a split second. She stands and takes my hand in hers, pulling me forward into a hug. We sway for a moment and she guides me over to the entertainment center.

Music.

I laugh a little as she twirls me while simultaneously pulling the hair tie from my hair. She pulls me in letting my head rest on her shoulder. I can feel Sonny's fingers pulling through my hair and tickling my neck, her lips touching wherever her fingers go. I pull my head up and kiss her cheeks, then her nose, and then her forehead. I leave her lips; we're just staring now. Her fingers slip under the hem of my shirt and press against my stomach. "Sonny?" I mumble. I try to mimic her actions but I suddenly can't move. My fingers are hard like stone. An unpleasant tingle trickles up my fingers making every inch of my body that it touches exactly like my fingers; stone like. Sonny's lips are cold on my skin. I can't push her away and no matter how hard I try nothing comes out of my mouth. She steps away from me.

"Love," the word falls gently from her lips. "Chad." Her words are not graceful or careful, and her eyes turn cold. I feel her hand clench my wrist and something inside me shatters. "He's everything you're not." The room turns a deep blood red. There is no furniture or sunlight. Everything is silent. An invisible binding wraps around my slender body from my shoulders down to each ankle. Every intake of breath feels like a knife stabbing my heart over and over again. "Chad is perfect. You are nothing." The ground begins to shake. Cracks snake through the concrete and loop through one another until I'm standing in the very middle of a giant spider web made entirely of the floor beneath me. With an effortless tap from Sonny, I'm on the floor. For a second I see nothing, but then everything becomes clearer. It's not Sonny standing before me anymore. Chad leans forward, his sandy blonde hair falling lightly over his crystal eyes, and his lips turn up into a delicious smile. It's a smile perfected after years of practice in front of the camera. He lets a hand fall on my head and, like you would do to a dog, patted my hair. "I'm everything you're not. I am perfect. I am everything." The ground begins to shake again, but this time, it's slower. Around me streams of light enclose around me and shoot like falling stars. Chad's face becomes dimmer and dimmer until it is only a blur of dark grey. A blood curdling scream stabs through my ears. Clamping my hands around my ears, I let out my own bellowing scream into the mix. Everything around me collapses.

And now I'm awake.

What the hell? I crack my back as I lean up. I'm on the floor, and as I grope around in the darkness, I feel the frame of a couch and the leg of a table. My wand is pinned in my belt loop. I can feel it pushing against my stomach. Somewhere outside of the room, I can hear voices laughing and talking but here, I am alone. No one is around me. Standing, I slip my wand out and hold it out in front of me casting a ball of light into the nearest lamp. It isn't a lot of light, but it's enough, and that's when the memories come flooding back.

Making the brownies...

Licking some batter by accident...

Coming to the studio...

Chad...

Sonny...

The spell...

And the moment that the spell backfired. I'm not a person to worry a lot, but even the silence of the room has me on edge. I can still feel an uncomfortable prickling in the pit of my stomach and the stale, sticky taste of magic in my mouth. Chad's discarded brownie remnants are on the table. There are still voices outside. I can't go out there. How do I explain why I'm in Chad Dylan Cooper's dressing room? It has to be early. I feel for my phone but it's not in my pocket. With slight hesitation, I wave my wand around my body and now I'm in my bedroom. I flick my wand and my brush comes soaring at me from the dresser and I run it through my hair. I change my clothes, but I stop short of trying to make anything look cute or attractive. I just don't have it in me today.

I'm finally in the prop room. I wish I wasn't. Nico and Grady throw a little wave at me, but they never look up from their checkers game. They look at each other, though, and I can tell that although their communication is silent, it's most definitely about me. I uneasily move to the couch with Zora. She barely looks up from her book as she moves further over on the couch until she's pushed against the arm chair and as far from me as possible. So this is the spell?

The door opens and Sonny walks in. I'm standing before I realize it. She's the first one to look at me, but it's for only half a second. She turns away before I can even blink and there she sits with Grady and Nico, eyeing their checkers movement abnormally close. She isn't going to ignore me though. No. I can't let this happen. She needs to know. I walk over to her and tap her shoulder, and she only hm's quietly without looking up.

"I need to talk to you."

"Do you?" she mutters absently.

"Sonny." I plead more urgently. She looks up finally but at the door, not at me. I follow her out and now we're standing in the hallway. "I did the spell."

"Sorry..." Sonny finally looks at me. "-you did what?"

"It didn't work." I say. "Not on Chad at least. I messed up."

"Shocker."

"Just listen, Sonny. I put the brownies in Chad's dressing room. He came in but you were with him. I had to be careful because I knew you wouldn't...approve."

"Then that's when you should have realized you shouldn't be there."

"He finally ate the brownie," I press on. "But when he came in I wasn't ready and I was just hiding behind the couch. I didn't think he'd come in that quickly. I had thrown myself down on the floor without thinking about my wand. When I picked up my wand, I picked it up the wrong way. I put the spell on myself without thinking about it."

"So? You never ate one of the brownies." Five. Four. Three. Two. One. "Oh Alex, you ate one of the brownies?"

"Just some batter." I grumble. "By accident."

"Yeah everything is a big accident with you isn't it?"

"I'm so-"

"In the room, girls." Marshall waves us in the room. We go inside with a slight run and take a seat.

Marshall walks in the room with a fury in his step. His hand is clenching a fistful of papers and he slams them down on the table behind the couch. Everyone looks up at him as he begins to pace back and forth. I slowly stand up and walk over to him and pick up the papers.

"It's our popularity ratings." I say. "Nico, high. Grady, high. Sonny, holy crap. Off the charts. Zora, high. Alex -" Low. Very low. Off the charts low. My name doesn't even have a line on the pretty colored line chart. Sonny stands up and grabs the papers without even looking at me. Her mouth drops and she tosses the papers to Grady and Nico, who then pass it to Zora. Now everyone's looking at me except for Marshall whose head is still in his hands.

"Did you read the comments?" Marshall grumbled from behind his hands.

"Do we want to?"

His hands drop to his side. "No." he says simply. I fall backwards into the chair behind me and push my head into the plushy cushion. It's the spell. To everyone now, I'm ugly and horrible on the inside. No one likes me. That's why Nico and Grady were acting weird around me and Zora isn't talking. I thought Sonny was just still mad at me and everyone was taking her side. Shit. "Do you guys realize what this means?" Marshall is pacing again but his steps are longer and fewer in between. "The only ratings we changed were how the public views her, and not in a good way. Usually when a popularity rating is as low as Alex's, we'd just fire her." I begin to open my mouth to protest but I get a shhhh from everyone in the room. "Unfortunately, however, her low rating has caused our shows rating to plummet even further than it already was. That affects everyone. Even more so, it affects the shows lifespan which has been cut considerably shorter. I received a call from Mr. Conrad this morning regarding Alex. Seeing as we can't fire her in the middle of a contract, he doesn't see how there is a viable way to save the show. Effective immediately after the filming of next weeks episode, So Random is canceled." A rock drops in my stomach. The room is quiet, but the silence speaks louder than anything else. Zora rubs her forehead and walks out of the room. Grady throws an arm around Nico and they follow Zora out. Marshall takes one look at the papers and makes a movement to pick them up, but then shakes his head and just follows the other three out. Sonny goes to the couch and buries her head in her knees.

"Sonny..." Her back is turned away from me. She's sitting on the couch with her legs tucked beneath her arms and her head is placed gently on the top of her knees. "Please look at me." I walk a little closer and lean up against the arm of the couch. The couch shifts a little and her shoulders shake, but it's not from my body weight moving the furniture. I hear the slightest squeak and I know she's crying. "Please don't cry."

"It's over, Alex. You ruined everything."

"Sonny,"

"I don't want to go back to Wisconson." She looks up. Her eyes are anywhere but mine. They're puffy and red and long streaks of tears run down her face. "I don't want to go back to that. I want to be here on So Random, and you ruined it. You ruined everything."

"I can fix it."

"With what? Magic? That worked out well before."

"I just have to get the spell off of me. There has to be a counter potion."

"Just stop!" she screams. "Did you read these comments? Did you? Did you see what they put? Alex Russo comes off as an arrogant know it all. Ha, know it all? Alex Russo takes over the spotlight on So Random in a bad way. Her gruff attitude and sharp personality makes fans cringe with disdain. At least they got your personality spot on. Alex Russo is So Random – as in, no one understands what her skits are about. That's how random them are. Oh, that's interesting! Alex Russo treats others on set poorly and causes mayhem and ruckus with her fellow costars and those who work on set." She throws the paper at my stomach and I flinch. "They just know you so well."

"The potion is still in effect on me." I say slowly. "So it's still affecting you as well. I understand that. You're talking like this because of the potion."

"No," she shakes her head and pushes herself off the couch. "I'm talking like this because I'm angry at you. Or is that too impossible for you to comprehend? That someone is actually angry at the Alex Russo? Because guess what Alex? Everything isn't about you. Just because you're some super Wizard doesn't mean you can just do whatever the hell you want or think whatever the hell you want-"

"Sonny-"

"-because you can't. You tried putting Chad under a spell and it backfired. You screwed up. Now it's affecting me. I thought you loved me? Why couldn't you just believe me? Why couldn't you just have accepted that Chad and I have a friendship and that it was nothing more than that? Why did you have to meddle? I had it handled."

"You had it handled? I saw you two flirting!"

"No, Alex. You saw Chad flirting. Did you once see me respond?" No. "You have nothing to say do you ? Because you know I'm right."

"Sonny, I'm sorry." I won't cry. I won't cry. I won't cry. I won't cry. Shit. I'm crying. "I want to fix this. I'll fix this." She leans forward and I grab her hand quickly before she can move any further back. My fingers slip between hers and I pull her closer to me so I can feel her breath. Tears fall from her eyes, mirroring my own. Her chocolate brown eyes follow the trail that a fallen tear leaves down my face. Sonny's free hand wipes it off my chin. I kiss her finger, and surprisingly, her finger doesn't move away. It lingers for a moment on my lips until it slips down tracing my jaw line and then brushing against my shoulder. Her hand grips my waist and she squeezes a little. I move in closer to her, leaving a line of kisses down her throat. I take my hand away from hers so both of my hands can cup her face. We lean in together and wrap ourselves in a kiss we've never shared before. Her hands push me back onto the couch and we fall together, not breaking our kiss. I feel her hands twisting through my hair, but at the same time I feel her pulling away. I try and keep her close but she pushes back.

"I don't know if it's the spell," she says through deep, long breaths. "Or if I'm genuinely angry with you for the Chad thing or for ruining the show." I try pulling her down back on top of me but she stands and backs away. I lean up and fix my shirt. "But I can't do this. I can't be around you, because I feel like I hate you. I feel like..." she pauses, taking another deep breath and brushing strands of hair behind her ear. "I feel like I never want to see you again, Alex Russo."

Then she's gone. I'm all cried out, though. Now I just want to scream and yell and break things. I grab my cell phone and go to dial Harper's number but it's not there next to me anymore.

"Looking for this?" The voice echoes off the walls and then my phone falls down into my lap. One loud pop later and I'm staring into the icy blue eyes of my Aunt Megan. Her hair is pulled up into a high pony tale, accentuating the bony features of her face. She's paler and thinner. "Hello niece." I grip my wand tighter than I ever have before. "Oh don't worry, I'm not here to do anything. I just wanted to check in. I am your aunt after all."

"Some aunt," I scoff. I'm on my feet now, my wand outstretched to point at her throat. "I've been practicing," I warn. She laughs a little and takes a seat, crossing her legs and relaxing with her head leaned back against her hands.

"Like I said, Alex. I'm not here to fight you."

"Then why are you here?"

"To make sure you remember me." From her jacket, she pulls a heavy looking manilla envelope. I eye it, but I don't make a movement towards picking it up. That's what she wants.

"How did you get in here? You're powerless."

"There is more than one kind of magic, baby Russo." she stands. "You say you've been practicing, but let me tell you Alex: you've been practicing all the wrong things. There are all sorts of magic in this world. If you're too pathetic to grasp it, then you deserve to be powerless. I could teach you more than your father ever will." Her fingers dance across the envelope on the coffee table. "Remember me, Alex." She snickers and then is gone. When I've thoroughly checked all corners, I go back to the envelope and dump everything out. Stacks of pictures fall out and my heart sinks as I flip through each one. Sonny at the store, Sonny at the doctors, Sonny at the studio... they're all of Sonny, except the very last pile. They're all of Sonny and I, either in one of our rooms or in a private area. Every single one shows us holding hands or kissing. I reach the last photo only to realize it's stuck together to another one. I carefully tear the edges away. The photo is covered in a red sticky goo.

Blood is covering Sonny's face in the photo.