A Touch of Sanity

Summary: Set after Wizards Exposed when their walking around the desert. Justin feels guilty for exposing them as wizards and Alex still blames him for it. Jalex naturally.

A/N: This was supposed to start out with Alex comforting Justin, but I realized that I couldn't make Alex just forgive him so easily, she holds grudges and would be the only one in the family (besides Justin) to stay angry at him.

They just forgive him, no glaring, no lecture, no "how could you be so stupid" lines meant to incite guilt within their elder son. Perfect Justin did wrong, made a huge mistake and destroyed their entire world, and her parents just hug him and say they know he didn't mean to; and he claims she gets off easy.

She can't, won't, forgive that effortlessly.

They make camp when it starts getting dark, debating the pros and cons of a fire, and Alex once again curses herself for forgetting her cell phone. It's all Jerry's fault anyways, he's the one who took it away just because the bill was a little high, and the fact that Mason being back had distracted her from retrieving it just yet probably put some of the blame on her boyfriend as well.

She pulled the plaid shirt closed over her chest, her arms crossing as she started to shiver from the dropping temperature around her. The young wizard knew her brother wasn't always the most street savvy of people, and when he'd offered her his own outter layer as protection from the harsh desert sun despite his own skin being far more prone to burning she took it without comment. Let him burn. It's hard to tell in the fading sun light, but she's pretty sure the tips of Justin's ears are pink, the sight giving her a sick twist of satisfaction in her stomach.

Theresa's fear of being discovered quickly win her husband and Max over, the eldest Russo's statistical ramblings of the exact degrees it gets when the sun goes down in a desert dying on his lips at the fear in his mother's eyes and it's decided. Professor Sweet grumbles idly by while Alex burrows deeper into her boyfriend's arms, trying to find the warmth there.

She's not sure when she dozed off, it's only as she awakens that she even realizes she's not sitting anymore, her body caught in a warm cocoon between her little brother and Mason. Dark eyes search around her, instinctively sensing something missing, her brows furrowing as she notices the blank space between her mother and Max.

The younger boy is surprisingly clingy as she disentangles herself, making a soft sound of protest at the loss of warmth and then she's tip-toeing away, working towards what could very easily be an oddly shaped rock at the edge of their little make-shift camp.

Justin's back becomes more distinguished as she comes closer, his eyes focused into the darkness of the direction they're going. She sits down next to him without ceremony, wondering absently if he's going to catch cold for being away from the warm press of bodies and deciding instantly she's not giving back his shirt. The barely noticeable turn of his head is all the sign he gives of acknowledging her presence.

"I always thought it'd be Max who'd get us caught." The words are casual, her tone harsh as she stares at him, eyes taking in the way his lower to the ground, lips thinning as he stares at his hands. She's surprised when her own hand moves forward, pads of her fingers pressing into the soft skin of his forearm and wrist; his skin is chilled. Her touch is far gentler than she wants it to be. She's still angry, can feel the cold burn in her chest, the desire to point the finger of blame and spit out heated words churning in the pit of her stomach, because their world is falling apart and someone needs to pay. She wonders why she doesn't as Caribbean memories try to surface, she can still feel of wind and hair in her face when everything is taken from her and she pushes the memory back as her thumb starts to move in small circles over the back of his wrist.

He's staring at her hand like it's a snake, caution and dread all mixing together with the careful blankness he's held since they lost sight of the entrance to the underground base. He'll blame himself for any harm that comes to the wizards still trapped below, she knows this, he's so quick to pass blame onto anyone else except when it's all his to claim, taking on far more than his fair share during those times.

"Alex." Her name sounds so broken in the darkness, as if he's choking on it and she remembers this is why everyone is so easy to forgive him when he does wrong; he punishes himself far more severely than anyone else ever could. Grey eyes, colorless in the night, move up to her face and she's reminded flittingly of when Juliet was taken, just before he had broken down in her arms, when he was still trying to hold on, to hold it all together.

She moves as if to hug him, only her fingers never release his wrist and their bodies don't move at the right angle, but he needs this. The kiss tastes like desperation and fear, all underlined with that bond between them, the magic, she'd always thought. Only she can feel it's absence, now that she's still, feel the lack of it's thrum beneath her skin so that all that's left is her and the desert and Justin Justin Justin.

She's reminded of a brush of lips in the jungle as his right hand comes up to cup her face, of the night that never happened because she made everything as it was before with a magic rock and the desire for it not to be broken anymore.

"Alex." The two teens turn quickly as the soft sound, grey and brown eyes taking in the teenager standing there, staring at them in confusion and hurt and million other emotions that Alex remembers feeling when the same boy professed love to her brother's girlfriend.

Her voice is soft sigh in the endless desert. "Mason."

A/N: Ok, so I seriously hate the ending. I wanted Mason to catch them but this is worded all wrong. Oh well, this may get a sequel/a second chapter. We'll see.

I purposely have not watched any WoWP episodes after Wizards Exsposed because I love this idea so much and I didn't want anything to effect how I saw things playing out from the end of that ep and thus change the story.

Reviews=Love