4
Alex was having so much fun hearing about her life in the future. So she was going to design clothes under Raven Baxter, live in an apartment near Central Park and date frequent and often without any plans of getting married, but it was also a bitter pill to realize for herself that she really was just as self-centered as Justin claimed she was. Her future counterpart used up the hot water in the house for a shower, invaded her own beauty regime and just generally considered herself the center of the known universe. It was a very bitter pill, but Justin felt the impact of having Alex twice in the house too. He seemed to be catching flak for a lot of stuff he hadn't done yet.
"It's not my fault I'm going to ruin your senior prom!!!" Justin charged down the steps upset. "You can't keep blaming me for dating Harper and having kids that haven't been born yet!" He gritted his teeth, hissed under breath and looked around for something to hit and take out his anger. "I marry Harper?!!!"
"Man, those two are horrible together." Max joined his brother in the apartment. "Apparently, I'm someday going to borrow her car and total it."
"You boys think you got it tough…" Theresa was preparing breakfast for her family. "Last night, future Alex cried on my shoulder for two hours describing every single failed relationship she ever had." She sighed tiredly and flipped the pancakes. "My poor Lexie is going to be so lonely in the future."
"Dad, dad…" Justin sighed and tugged at his father's arm. "You've got to hurry up and send Alex back to the future. One Alex, is bad enough… but two?!! While we're at it, let's send them both to the future!!!"
"Justin…"
"Get off my case!!!" Alex started screaming upstairs. "Dad, dad…" Alex came rushing down the stairs upset, pushed aside her brother and tugged at his father's arm. "You've got to hurry up and send me back to the future!! In addition to studying more, she wants me to exercise!!! Apparently, I didn't like having chunky hips in high school!!!"
"I think we're all tired of future Alex by this point." Jerry sighed and looked to his kids. "I updated the time travel spell to send Alex back to when I had my powers so I can send her back to the future…"
"Say it like it the movie!!!" Max requested.
"Back to the future!!!" Jerry imitated Christopher Lloyd as the crazy inventor from the movie. Max laughed at his father's wit, but Justin and Alex rolled their eyes in unison.
"Anyway…" Jerry gestured between sips of his morning coffee. "I got the spell, but I want you kids to repeat me exactly so there's no foul-up." He set his cup aside. "Alex, come down here!!!" He called up the stairs and his future daughter started coming down. Theresa served younger Alex her breakfast and looked up to see her daughter's future counterpart coming down to her. She was a shapely, incredibly stunning beauty with the eyes of Eva Longoria, the long hair of Penelope Cruz and the figure of Salma Hayek, but she still had the selfish me-personality of her present counterpart. She wore high-heeled boots with hip-hugging khakis and an expensive black blouse from her mother's closet.
"I just got that blouse!" Theresa recognized her clothes.
"Well," Thirty-year old Alex reacted. "I borrowed it. You'll get back in what… twelve… fifteen years." She noticed her younger counterpart eating syrup-soaked pancakes covered in whipped cream. "Oh, no, no, no, no…." She took the plate away. "Younger me, we're eating healthy fruit and watching our carbs now!" Younger Alex glared upset and disgusted. She so wanted those pancakes!
"That's it!" She screamed. "She gets sent away now!!!" She whipped her wand out as her future self reacted surprised.
"Alex, honey…" Jerry tugged his adult daughter out. "No disrespect, but you're kind of getting on our nerves here."
"And one Alex is already one Alex too many!" Justin added as he and Max whipped out their wands.
"Okay, honey…" Jerry escorted his adult daughter to the middle of the room and placed his middle three around her in a three-pointed circle. "Now, I'm not sure when exactly you land, but since you traveled roughly fifteen years from the future you should land sometime in the Eighties back when I was working here with Mr. Hennessey and this place was a burger joint."
"How will I know you?"
"Your father was a very handsome man." Theresa stood at the sink filling the dishwasher. "But if you run into me, don't mention anything about magic otherwise I might not have married him at all." As much as she loved her husband and marriage, the sorcery in it was often too much for her to handle by herself.
"What?!" Jerry stood offended.
"Oh," Theresa reacted at what she had said. "I'm sure I would have. I'm sure I would have…"
"Uh-huh…" Jerry was starting to see another side of his wife. "Okay kids, let's do this…"
"One last thing…" Future Alex grabbed her younger self by the sleeve. "For the love of God please study your magic, I do not want to go back to the future unarmed against those brats!"
"Way ahead of you!" Young Alex could not agree more.
"And if I get back to the future and don't have my powers, I'm coming back and beating you up!" She took her place again. Alex held aloft her wand as did Justin and then Max. They held them aloft as their father recited the spell from the magic book.
"Okay kids, repeat after me…" Jerry looked up as he recited the incantation. "I call upon the shadows of the past…"
"I call upon the shadows of the past…" Justin, Max and Alex recited in unison and pointed their wands upon the adult Alex Russo.
"Open the doors of time and the windows of infinity…."
"Open the doors of time and the windows of infinity…." The kids chanted together.
"Return this one to a place in time…"
"Return this one to a place in time…" The door to the patio drifted open as a breeze filled the room. Clouds outside started rolling eastward.
"To take her place back in time." Jerry added.
"To take her place back in time." Alex, Justin and Max continued holding their wands aloft as Alex shared one last look with her future self. Theresa beamed one last time a waved good-bye to the woman her daughter was going to be. Older Alex shed a tear as the room seemed to fold over itself. There was two of everyone and everything for a second, then three of everything. The room stayed in one place and turned at the same time with images overlapping. The spiral staircase and everything around it seemed to stretch from where it was and then reach backward to where it was. Her past self had vanished with her brothers. Jerry was still holding the book and Theresa was still watching from the dishwasher.
"Jerry, what happened to the kids?" Theresa reacted alarmed.
"I don't know…" Jerry checked the book. "Maybe instead of sending Alex back, they got sent back…."
"What?!" Alex and her mother screamed in unison.
"Dad…" A voice called from upstairs and they looked toward it. Someone was coming down, but the owner of that voice was not any of his kids. It was another young lady. It was Jerry's other daughter… Harper Russo, a bright, lovely young lady who was learning magic under his tutelage! She came jaunting down the stairs with her long brown hair bouncing on her shoulders.
"Dad, you've got to talk to Jason and Medea. I am trying to get ready for school and they keep hogging the bathroom." She stopped and looked at the strange woman in her home. "Who's this?"
"Who's…" Jerry looked back not realizing his past had been altered. "That's a good question. Who are you, and how'd you get in here?"
"What?" Alex looked behind her and recognized Harper's mother at the dishwasher. What was going on here? Could the past have been altered? Did she travel back in time as a kid and accidentally marry her father off to her best friend's mother?
"Jerry…." Connie Russo stepped out drying her hands off. "Who is this woman?"
"Dad, it's me!" Alex reached to her father. "It's me! Alex!!! You tried to send me into the past but it didn't work. You sent my other self to the past and she changed history! I'm your real daughter!!!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about…." His past altered, Jerry Russo just could not phantom just who this Alex Russo really was.