Chapter 21: The Wizard and the Guardian

Alex Russo woke up on the floor of the Waverly Sub Station. She sat up and looked around. It was the middle of the day. The sun was shining in the restaurant. She sat there is mass confusion. One minute she was in massive pain and couldn't breathe and the next minute she was laying on the floor of the sub station. She stood up and saw the calendar and it was on June 2010. It was when they all met the Doctor. Not just that it was on June 12, the very day the Doctor had walked into her life. She saw her reflection in the freezer door in the kitchen. She saw herself and said, "This is impossible."

She was a teenager again. The last twenty years had been erased from her features. She had no idea what just happened. Had the last twenty years been just a dream? How could that happen? If she did dream it all, why was she asleep on the floor of the sub station? She looked for the TARDIS outside and there was nothing there. Was it all a dream? Her head hurt from all the thinking.

Alex walked around the place looking for people. She went to the doors to the Waverly Sub Station and walked outside. The sun was unnaturally bright but it didn't hurt her eyes. People walked around outside like it was a normal day outside. There was a feeling around that this was different. It felt more peaceful and calm. She walked back into the sub station. She walked to a chair and sat down. She thought aloud saying, "What's going on here? Either I just had a very strange dream or something is messing with me."

"Alex!" she heard someone call her from upstairs. Her mom came down from the spiral staircase that led to their loft. Theresa looked at Alex and started to say something, "Alex, how many times do I have to tell..."

"Mom," Alex said. She stood up and the waterworks started.

Theresa saw her daughter's face and stopped watch she was saying. Theresa asked, "Alex, what's wrong?"

"I don't know, but I don't care," Alex said. She ran to her mom and hugged her.

"What?" asked Theresa, "What's with all this?"

"I've missed you so much," Alex said. She let go of Theresa and stepped back a few feet.

"What do you mean?" asked Theresa.

"It's a very, very long story," said Alex.

Jerry came down from upstairs and Alex ran up to him and hugged him just like she did Theresa. Jerry asked, "What going on? You don't ever give people hugs."

"I've changed," Alex said.

"How have you changed in an hour?" asked Jerry.

"It's felt more like 21 years to me," Alex said.

"What's felt like 21 years?" Justin asked as he in from outside.

"Justin," Alex turned around. She ran up to her older brother and gave him a bear hug.

"What are you doing?" asked Justin. When Alex let go, Justin searched all over his body for anything Alex would have put on him. He asked her, "What did you do?"

"Nothing," Alex said, "I've just missed you so much. Before you ask, it's a very, very long story."

Max walked in and Alex hugged him too. He was just as confused as the others. They all wanted to know why Alex was being nice to them all. Alex looked around and asked aloud, "I guess all those years with the Doctor were just a dream."

"Who's the Doctor?" asked Alex.

"He's a time traveling alien from a race of god-like people called Time Lords. He's from the planet Gallifrey. I think he sometimes called it the Shining World of the Seven Systems. I spent the last twenty years with him or least I dreamed I did. He traveled in his time traveling space ship called the TARDIS. It was bigger on the inside. I know magical things are like that, but the TARDIS was so much bigger than anything wizard thing I had ever seen. It was amazing," Alex went on. She continued, "And the Doctor was amazing. He was about 2300 years old."

"What are you talking about?" asked Justin, "None of that makes any sense."

"It actually makes perfect sense," a man's voice said from beside the entrance to the sub station. Everyone turned to face him and he was wearing all white. His hair was white and his mustache and goatee were white. He wore a white fedora on his head. He said, "Everything Alex has told you is true."

"How would you know?" asked Justin.

"Because I know," said the Man in White.

"Who are you?" asked Alex.

"I am the White Guardian."

"The Doctor told me about you," Alex said.

"Yes, he did," the White Guardian said.

"So what's real then?" asked Alex.

"The one with the Doctor. I just took your consciousness and placed you in this world created for you until the Doctor fixes everything," the White Guardian explained. He froze the family and continued, "You are really 38 years old, but I made you a seventeen year old girl again, but with the memories of the last 21 years spent with the Doctor."

"Why would you do that?" asked Alex.

"Because the Doctor is about to hit the reset button and all things will be made right," the White Guardian told her.

"If that was real before I woke up here, did the Doctor kill me?" asked Alex.

"In a way, yes, but in a way no," said the White Guardian, "He killed your physical body, but your mind was taken by me for safety. You are basically, for lack of a better term, a soul. You are the energy that was in the physical body."

Alex was trying to take it all in and she asked, "So I am dead but alive?"

"Kind of," the Guardian said.

"Oh that helps," Alex said, "But anyway, when this is over will any of us remember these last twenty years?"

"No, Alex," the Guardian said, "I will as will my five brothers and sisters, but for you, Harper and the Doctor, it will never have happened to any of you and none of you will remember it. You will be brought back to your graduation party and you will eighteen again. That time is coming soon. The Doctor has the Key to Time assembled and is about to use it."

"So everything will be made right in the end?" asked Alex.

"Yes," said the White Guardian.

"Well, I guess that's good," Alex said.

"It is," the White Guardian said. He looked at his wrist as if he had a watch and out of nowhere one appeared on his wrist. He said, "I think our time is up."

Alex got dizzy and looked around. The place was spinning and she held up her hands. They were turning into gas and whirling around her. Her eyes grew wide and she was freaking out, "WHAT'S HAPPENING!"

"Time is reversing," the White Guardian said. His voice was calm and he was smiling, "The Doctor did it. Remain calm, Alex Russo. Everything is being reset. The universe is healing."

Alex tried to speak, but she vanished into a gas as did everything else. The White Guardian smiled and he walked into a light that appeared out of nowhere and he was gone.