New York; 2012

"I think it's nice that you're going with Alex to the wedding," Theresa tells him. Instead of an answer he shoves a forkful of pancakes in his mouth, followed just as quickly with at least half of the glass of milk his mother had set out for him.

It's better than telling him that pretty much all of Alex's friends from school think he's her boyfriend.

And much, much better than admitting he actually sort of is.

Alex comes down the stairs, the wheels of her suitcase banging, loud and repetitive, all the way to the bottom. She stands it upright when she finally gets to the bottom, and drapes the garment bag housing her peach dress over it. "Whew," she exhales heavily, pushes her hair off her neck, and sits on the stool next to Justin where their mother has set out a plate for her.

"Think you packed enough?" Justin eyes the lumbering pink suitcase, a dubious expression on his face. It looks like it outweighs her by at least 5 pounds.

She tosses off a small glare in his direction before she digs into her breakfast. "With Paige, you never really know what's going to happen. Just trying to be prepared."

"It's a wedding-what could you need besides a nice dress?"

Giving him that look-that patented 'Justin has no clue about girls no matter what he says' look that she does so well, she shakes her head and pats his arm as if he were some old man who was out of touch with reality. "Well, we went to the Met once for an assignment and wound up in a biker bar in Jersey playing Musical Jeopardy with a guy named Paco so what do you think?" she says.

"What?" Theresa demands, anger marring her features.

"Uh…" Alex grapples for something, anything, to get her out of her statement. Justin knows the look. "Bicycle bar. Fruit smoothies, green tea. Latest thing." She rolls a piece of bacon in a pancake and stands, latching onto her brother's arm. "Let's go."

Wincing, he tries to tug free from her grip. "Fingernails!"

…0…

Alex falls asleep almost the second the train begins its slow crawl out of the station. By the time they reach full momentum, her head is on his shoulder and she's making little puffy breathing noises into his shirt. Not that expected anything else. She was always the first one to fall asleep on family road trips, even when they were small.

He lets her sleep, knowing full well the wrath of a cranky Alex roused from sleep too soon, only nudging her awake when the porter announces 20 minutes before they pull into the Hartford station. She's groggy when she looks up at him, but she snuggles against him and nuzzles her face into the sleeve of his shirt while she mumbles incomprehensible babbles, and he can't tell if whether she's fighting sleep or consciousness.

They rent a car at the station, full of city people coming out to summer homes, and it takes forever, especially with Alex grumbling the whole time until he reminds her that she's the one who told Paige not to pick them up since she was going to be too busy preparing for the ceremony. It's only when she knows that he's not going to let go of the fact that he's right does she stop whining and fixes a petulant glare on the rental clerk instead.

She gives him the directions to Paige's family estate outside the city. They only get lost twice and he only yells once (he considers that a step up from the last time they attempted an outing together) about her terrible note taking before a gardener at a neighboring house directs to the correct driveway.

The place is a palace, all white siding against a brilliant blue ocean backdrop and vivid roses framing the cobblestone driveway. The top of a white tent on the beach is only just visible from where they are, looking like a dot on the waves in the distance.

Hearing a squeal, both turn to see Paige rushing towards them. When she flings her arms around Alex, the force almost knocks them both backwards, but Justin manages to right them with a hand on Alex's back. Paige grins at him, flashing a snow white smile, every inch the girl he met at the salsa club down to her thick eyeliner, radiating happiness in a setting where she looks so out of place.

"The rehearsal dinner is at 6; cocktails start an hour beforehand, but come down whenever you're ready." It's all in one long breath. Impressive. "The ceremony starts at noon, but I was really hoping you'd get ready with me and the horrid girls my mother is making me have as bridesmaids?" Paige pushes her lower lip out in an exaggerated pout; hands clasped in front of her chest, and give Alex the most convincing puppy eyes Justin has ever seen.

Of course Alex caves.

It's already close to 3, so she leaves them to settle into their room.

Alex gulps visibly (and audibly) when he opens the door, and it doesn't escape Justin's notice how she hovers by the door even after she shuts it.

"Alex, you okay?"

He has a terrifying thought, looking at her looking at the bed like its Dante's Seventh Circle, that maybe she's not uncomfortable for the reason he thinks. Or maybe she is.

He is, and not even trying to hide it.

Clearing his throat in a bout of nervousness energy, he sets his suitcase on the bed and begins to unpack. If he keeps busy, he can mask the terror gurgling in his stomach, the possibilities of what could, may, happen here if they aren't careful.

So he focuses on unpacking, on carefully putting his things away and arranging them just so, on setting some tiny bit of order. This weekend is so up in the air, anything could happen and they have to be cautious, he thinks, and he just needs a minute to be calm and to be by himself-if only in his own head.

Alex is still by the door, he can feel her eyes on him, can feel her nerves and unease. Justin wants so badly to tell her that everything is okay, but he can't. He's not so sure it is all okay.

"Do…" she begins, voice shaky and so not Alex. "Do you want to go down for the drinks, or wait for dinner?"

"Either is fine with me. Your call." He shuts the top drawer of the nightstand that now holds the book he brought with him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Justin sees Alex shift back and forth on her feet before finally flopping her garment bag onto the other side of the large bed and unzips it. The closet is on his side, so when she hands off her peach dress and a few tops on hangers to him to put away without a word, he takes it that everything is back to normal.

…0…

Washington; 2018

Alex doesn't answer when he calls her at the gallery. She'd left the number for him, and no doubt must have known the unfamiliar number and area code must belong to him, but he ended up leaving his explanation to her voicemail instead of to his sister.

As it is, he sits on her front stoop with a can of diet soda, thinking about how this became his life.

Around sunset, she shows up, getting out of her car with two pizza boxes and a smaller box on top. Justin takes them from her and she grabs his soda as they begin to walk back inside.

"You know," she stops with her hand on the doorknob and turns to face him, "why don't we just eat out here."

He agrees if for no other reason than avoiding conflict is a must in any dealings with Alex. So he goes to put her purse inside and grab some napkins and more drinks and they sit there in silence and work their way through the pizzas-one pepperoni and pineapple for her, and mushroom, olive, and onion for him. They get strange looks of course, each of them with an open pizza box on their laps, but they have never been able to agree on toppings in their lives and he's, more than once, seen her put away an entire pizza in one sitting. The smaller box turns out to be garlic bread that's perhaps the best he's ever had, and he eats more than he usually would just to have an excuse not to talk.

At least until the quiet gets to be too much. "So…how was work?"

Alex shrugs. "It was okay. Sundays are iffy. Sometimes its crazy busy and other is just a bunch of lookers.

"Good."

She blew her bangs out of her face, the way she used to do. Justin looked away, down the street and at the townhouses and apartment building lining the quiet street.

"How's the research going?" she asks him, voice strained.

Fine, he tells her. Says a little about the classes he teaches, about life in North Carolina. Shockingly, she actually seems interested. "I never thought I'd like teaching this much, but I guess when it's a subject you love it just kind of takes over everything else."

"I know," she remarks, tilts her head back to drain her soda can. "I taught an art class for kids a few months ago for a friend of mine and it was…"

"Surprising?" he offers.

There's a sparkle in her eye that he hasn't seen sine he got to DC, a hint of the old Alex. It's nice. "Yeah."

This is it, Justin thinks, and the air around them seems to thicken, this is the moment.

He's been waiting for it ever since he walked onto the airport in Chapel Hill, for the confirmation he's needed for almost six years.

This is a moment of clarity, so severe and utterly real, so solid, that he has difficulty breathing. He imagines this was how Carter felt when he opened King Tut's tomb for the first time and the full weight of what he was seeing hit him. An 'I told you so' floats through his head, his subconscious in glee at being right, though this is hardly a good thing. In fact, it could be one of the worst-if not the worst-thing that has ever happened to him.

More than half a decade of wondering and regret, of prayer and pretending, and now Justin Russo knows that he is still harboring a deep affection for his sister that he is not supposed to.

Now what?

…0…

Justin tosses and turns on the couch, unable to sleep for the second night in a row. Alex had seemed confused by his refusing to take the now vacant guest room to opt for her living room again. But she went with it, offering him a slight smile before she bid him good night.

The few hours they sat on the front steps with their pizza seemed to help things between them. He learned that Alex had taken up knitting since he'd seen her last, and he'd gotten a good laugh at the image of his sister, always too cool for everything in her own mind, with a pair of knitting needles, until she shoved at his shoulder. She told him about a trip she took to Spain the year before, with Callie from the gallery, and watching a real bullfight, and a disastrous attempt the previous summer to learn basic car maintenance.

"Didn't you date a mechanic once?" he teased, causing her to make a face at him.

"I'm lucky I didn't break my car."

Comfortable conversation, free of awkward tension, was something he didn't think he and Alex would ever be capable of again. (Sort of a side effect of getting physical with your sibling.) But now he's left alone with his thoughts and they are slowly driving him mad. Maybe if he splashes some cold water on his face it will help to clear his head a little.

And it may have, not that he knows for he comes out of the bathroom and Alex is sitting on the couch, hugging the pillow to her chest.

"Alex?"

"Its still there, isn't it?" She doesn't look at him, but she doesn't need to.

She could only be referring to one thing.

Her very body language is screaming despair and grief and he does hate himself for it, but that doesn't quell the tiny bit of relief at knowing it isn't just him feeling this way after all this time, after everything that happened.

Perhaps that's why he doesn't do the right thing. He doesn't tell her that it's all in her head, that of course it's gone-how could it not be after what happened in New York?

Alex is his little sister, and it has always been his job to protect her. He failed in that task once, and he vowed that no matter what happened he would never, ever, let something like that happen to her again-even if it meant he stayed away from her for the rest of his days.

If he were the man he used to believe himself to be; a moral man, a good man, a good brother, he would do what is best for Alex right now and deny it all exactly the same way he should have done the first time she kissed him.

All it takes to convince Justin that he is not that man (and maybe never was) is the way his heart lurches at the sight of Alex wiping her cheeks, head still fixed solely away from him like she can't stand to let him see her cry. He's kneeling in front of her on the carpet in less time than it takes to breathe. Some of the wetness from her tears rub against his ring finger when he takes hold of her hands and it drives the whole situation home in a way so wholly different than anything else has. Alex has cried over this, their situation before, and he's seen it. Hell, he caused it. There is pain involved in whatever it is that has taken over the two of them to make them feel a way they both know they shouldn't, so much pain that has never truly healed, has never been forgotten, and he whispers that he's sorry over and over now that it's too late for it to do any good.

"I missed you so much, Justin." Another tear drips slowly down her cheek. He watches it path until it disappears into the corner of her mouth. "But I was so ashamed…and I was afraid of what would happen if I saw you again, of what Mom and Dad would think-"

He cuts her off, squeezing her hands as tight as he can without hurting her, just to assure them both that no harm has been done yet, tonight. "So was I. I was terrified." He offers up a weak smile and a shrug he hopes will convey his feelings better than his words can. "We're not supposed to feel this way. But it won't seem to go away."

"It should never have started," she says simply.

Her statement is one he's said to himself so many times, thousands, millions, but it feels different coming from Alex. It feels weightier, holds more meaning.

Growing up, Justin always wondered what it would take to make Alex feel regret over her actions. Turns out it was him; her most frequent target.

Alex goes on, seemingly unable to stop now that she had really begun to open up. "I tried so hard to not think about you. I left my home, my family-"

"I never wanted that."

With an eye roll, she replies, "I know that, Justin. It was just too hard; seeing Max's face when he looked at me, like I was some kind of freak, Mom and Dad with those pained expressions; all hurt and disappointed…I had to get out of there."

She's giving him a glimpse into her heart. He sees that, respects it. Knows how hard it must be for her to open herself up this way. Emotions and consequences and responsibility-they were never things Alex liked to talk about, let alone take on, but she did it. She took the full blame of what transpired between the two of them back when they let lust and youth and want overtake their common sense-and Justin let her. He ran and left their mutual burden for her to deal with and he will never stop being guilty and ashamed for it.

"Why do you think I haven't been home since I left?" It's not much, but he wants her to know that she's not suffering alone.

A different expression crosses her face. Not the sadness, or the bereavement he was just witness to, something else. Something darker, deeper. Something flavored in anger and bitterness, directed squarely in his direction.

"I don't know. Is it the same reason you haven't spoken to me since I walked out of the lair?"

Justin's reasons for cutting ties with his sister are complicated. There was nothing involving malice behind it, no anger at her. He did avoid her, all thoughts of her that he could, and he'd imagined the same could be considered true for her as well, taking her silence past that night to be his confirmation. He thought that perhaps there was nothing to be said. Or, worse still, it was the opposite-there was too much; too much had happened and neither one of them had the desire or strength to broach such a painful subject. Not while it was still so fresh, and not after it had started to fade.

Now he thinks, maybe, it was just him.

Or it could be that his guilt got the better of him and he just could never bear to face her.

Alex's face hardens and she pulls away from him, sitting straighter and further into the couch, distancing herself from him, eyes cold and molten all at once.

The pain is still there, like a hard throbbing in the very depth of his chest, never dulling and something else begins to take its place. Something white and hot and burning.

Something like shame.

…0…

Hartford, Connecticut; 2012

The rehearsal dinner takes forever and Justin has never been so bored in his life. Paige is the only person he knows besides Alex and she's absconded somewhere with his sister, leaving him to fend for himself in a room full of investment bankers and lawyers and their over privileged, boarding schooled offspring.

At this point, he'd even be grateful to see one of the other people from the salsa club. At least it would be someone he could talk to.

Alex has been gone about 20 minutes before some older lady who looks strikingly similar to Paige sidles up to him and asks for a light.

"I don't smoke," he tells her, trying to think of a polite way to get out of and hide in his room until the wedding starts.

But that doesn't deter her a bit, and she steps closer in Justin's personal space with an all too telling gleam in her eyes, giving off a heavy whiff of expensive perfume. When her hand begins to creep up his shoulder the panic sets in and he backs up away from her. He collides with something slight yet solid, something that smells like his sister.

"Having fun?" she asks, voice coated with false sweetness.

He turns to see her looking at him with a bemused expression, holding two glasses of champagne in her hands. She tosses one look over his shoulder at the woman and snorts. "I know you like older women, Justin, but seriously, she's old enough to be your grandma."

"And you would be?" Justin backs away, leaving the two of them face to face, wondering if the blonde's steely expression would make Alex's amused smile falter.

"I'm Paige's friend," Alex ticks her gaze towards him and then back, "and his date. Back off. He's not your pool boy and he's looking for a tip."

He hears the woman sputtering indignantly, "Well, I never." but Alex has shoved one of the glasses into his hand and taken hold of his other one, leading him away.

Stopping in front of the glass doors leading out to a terrace and down to the pool, she finally fixed a look on him that was less amused than it had just been. She sat her glass down on a small mahogany table behind her and crossed her arms over her chest. "I leave the room for 5 minutes and you try to pick up Paige's aunt?"

"What?!" he sputtered. Waving his arms (and spilling his drink) he began to fume. "You left me and went who knows where, and I don't know anybody, and then some cougar tries to pick me up and it's my fault?"

"Keep it down," she hisses, pausing to smile at a passing cater-waiter before glaring back in his direction. "This is a wedding."

"It's a rehearsal."

She pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance. "Same difference."

Justin felt himself deflate, his anger dissipating, when he realized what they were doing. It was ridiculous-they were being ridiculous.

"You're right." He takes a deep breath and gives his glass to another passing waiter with a loaded tray. "I think I'm gonna call it a night."

He watches Alex's face soften, her shoulders loosening. She steps closer and slides a hand into his. "Sounds like a good idea."

He pulls her in against his side and wraps an arm around her shoulder. It's cold in the room despite the open doors to outside, and her dress is strapless, and her skin feels a little cool to the touch. He rubs her shoulder, trying to warm her up, and pulls her in closer, making her smile up at him.

Paige intercepts them by the doorway. She gives them a mischievous smirk. "My, don't you two look cozy." Her eyes rove between the two of them. "Turning in?"

She's not even trying to hide what she's implying, and from the strong blush Justin can feel rising in his cheeks he knows that Alex will understand if she hadn't before-not that he doubted it. She was just a little less prudish than him to be honest, and better able to school her features and not give away what she was feeling.

He only wishes that he knew what she was feeling about the implications right now.

…0…

Washington, 2018

Alex has shifted on the couch, stretching herself out as much as she can-letting him know in no uncertain terms that she does not want him on the couch with her.

He sits on the floor in front of the couch instead, his shoulder at an angle with hers. He could turn and look right into her eyes if he wanted to, but chooses to fix his eyes on the empty fireplace across from him.

"Can I ask you something?"

Her voice is clogged with tears, raspy and cracking with emotion, and it quite literally makes his ears hurt. There aren't words to describe what its doing to his heart.

"Sure."

She turns her head to face him, he sees the movement with his peripheral vision and turns his face away.

"What happened between us…" She trails off into a deep breath. "Do you blame me?"

A beat passes, a breath. There's nothing else to lose here; he can't not be honest with her. He owes her that much. "I used to."

She pushes. Typical Alex. "And now?"

Justin turns his face back toward hers and finds himself less than a hair's width away from her face and his heart thumps painfully in his chest. "I blame myself."

"You shouldn't."

She turns onto her side, wipes a hand blindly over her cheeks. Propping her head up on her hand, she levels her gaze on his face, seeming to be committing his features to memory. Is she trying to remember? Trying to make a memory-just in case? He doesn't know, but it makes him nervous; her gaze raking over him and making him feel like she's stripping away the layers he's hidden himself under all this time.

"Maybe," he shrugs. "But I do. I used to blame you because I thought that if you hadn't kissed me, it never would have happened." His eyes flick up to hers. There's uncertainty darkening the already dark orbs, a lack of confidence that he's unused to. "And truth be told, I hate myself for thinking that. I could have stopped it at any point…and I didn't. I'm just as guilty as you are."

They were close enough that their breath mingled together. His breathing was growing heavier with each word, a heady blend of nerves and guilt and want, of regret and could have been's, coiling tight within him. She leaned in a little further and their mouths almost touched. His lips had parted as though of their own volition, his mouth going dry.

Something clicks into place like clockwork, like the fine metal teeth of a gear, and starts slowly winding away.

The pieces fit-they fit-and they're gradually beginning to tick, setting out a rhythm, a pulse, and everything else begins to fade into white noise.

…0…