A/N: After "Detention Election" aired I went through previous chapters and changed Zeke's last name to Beekerman now that we received official spelling confirmation.

Harper Finkle was having a difficult time explaining everything that happened that day to her best friend. It wasn't that Alex Russo was dumb, or that the situation was overly complicated, but that Alex's short attention span was working against the duo.

"You said it was a cherry smoothie?" Alex asked, bag of chips in hand as she tried to focus on Harper's excited ramblings. While Harper paced nervously back and forth in the room, dressed in her plaid pajama pants and a hoodie Alex hadn't seen before, Alex simply stretched out on the bed.

"It was blueberry," Harper replied, her voice a mix of sadness and annoyance. How was she ever going to get to the 'Zeke was super sweet' part of the story if Alex kept getting hung up on the details?

Harper gestured toward the dress. She felt bad leaving it in the bag, so she hung it up to examine the damage.

"Stains like that are totally easy to remove," Alex said, quickly jumping up from the bed. She dropped the chips on the bed, wiping her crumby fingers off on her T-shirt before pulling her wand from her boot. "You just gotta know the right trick."

Harper let out a squeal, rushing to block the dress, arms stretched out and eyes closed tightly in fear. "Don't do it!" she begged, cautiously opening an eye to see if Alex had backed down. The wand was still in hand, but her expression changed from helpful to confused.

"Why not? You worked really hard on that dress, Harper," Alex said, tapping her wand against the palm of her other hand.

"Because Zeke was with me and he knows the dress got ruined so if you -" she motioned to the wand, eyes a bit wider than usual and a hint of easiness in her voice, "- fix it then he'll know you're a wizard!"

Alex rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah, if the dress was fixed the obvious leap would be straight to wizardry. Get real, Harper. We had actual aliens land on Waverly Place and he thought it was an ad campaign. Actual zombies at prom and he thought they were students."

Harper shook her head. While that was a good point – one Harper was honestly surprised Alex had stumbled up on – Harper knew better.

"This is different," she insisted, pointing a warning finger at Alex as she saw her best friend shift with the wand. Alex rolled her eyes one more, slipping the wand back to its secure location. "Zeke is an expert with laundry. There is no fooling him with this one."

Alex had officially backed down, stepping over to Harper to place a hand on her shoulder before pulling her in for a hug. "I'm sorry your dress got ruined. Want me to turn MacGruder into a toad or something?"

Harper shook her head, though she had to laugh at the suggestion. "Nah, he'll get his in time. I'm…I'm okay with how things turned out overall."

Alex pulled back, eyes finally catching the name sewn on the front of the hoodie her best friend wore.

"Is that…he gave you his hoodie?"

Harper was giggling, a hand moving to cover her mouth as she nodded her head.

"You guys are totally meant for each other," Alex replied as she walked across the room to pick up her chips. She flopped back down onto the bed, fingers brushing her dark hair behind her ears. "Seriously, you make me want to vomit so I can tell it's for real."

"Thanks," Harper responded sarcastically, though even her friend's gag reflex couldn't bring her down. Her cheeks were pink and she was hugging the shirt closer. "It smells like his shower soap." She was practically gliding across the room, taking a seat next to Alex.

"Ah, boy smell. I remember it well." Alex offered the chips to Harper who shook her head.

"What did Mason smell like?" she asked instead.

Every so often the two would talk about Alex's former boyfriend. Harper never liked to bring it up, but she found Alex had become more comfortable with it in the past few weeks. It showed an incredible amount of maturity and growth – two things most people doubted Alex was ever capable of expressing, but Harper Finkle was not 'most people.' She knew her best friend had more layers than she liked to show.

"Pilgrims and peppermints," Alex replied simply, a small smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

Harper raised her eyebrows. "Really?"

Alex let out a loud laugh. It was too easy to trick people sometimes. "No, but that sounds like it could be real, doesn't it?" Harper nodded, causing Alex to laugh more. As her laughter trailed off, Harper took it as a sign to speak.

"I'm sorry things didn't work out for you guys," she said sincerely.

"Me, too," Alex replied, pushing herself off the bed. "It's getting late. I should get to bed if I want to get to school by third period." Before she went up the stairs, Alex turned to glance at her best friend once again. "Things'll work out for you guys. If you need me to do anything…."

"No magic," Harper requested quickly, and Alex nodded.

"No magic," she promised. "But the statement still stands. I can knock some sense into the boy the old-fashioned way, you know."

"Thanks." Harper considered the offer, but shook her head soon after. "I think I've got this on my own this time…but I'll let you know."

Zeke Beekerman always had a lot of energy. He was a very active person since the day he came bouncing out. That's how his mother phrased it, at least, which kind of grossed him out but he forgave her because that's what family does.

Since that day he attempted to get rid of excess energy by enrolling in dance classes, sports, school clubs, acting lessons and anything else that would drain him so he could sleep at night.

He had a busy day, running around trying to come up with and execute the perfect plan for Harper. He'd enlisted the help of Justin, and by the end of the day he was completely exhausted.

But still he didn't sleep, brain working overtime as he tried to fit each puzzle piece carefully into place. He wanted things to work out right. So far everything had been awkward, and while he loved every minute of it, the awkwardness wasn't what girls wanted.

They wanted fairytale romances – the kind of stuff you see in movies or hear about in Taylor Swift songs. He was pretty sure the curly blonde country star hadn't sung anything about stained dresses and Dungeons and Gargoyle miniatures.

He'd probably like her a lot more if she did, but that really wasn't the point.

The point was that Zeke Beekerman was nervous.

And exhausted.

In fact, Alex Russo looked as tired as he felt as she walked into school the next morning with Justin. The dark-haired girl held a cup of coffee between her hands, eyes half-closed as she grunted in her brothers' direction. He was saying something – she wasn't listening.

"What's with her?" Zeke asked as he approached the duo. He'd gotten to school early and spent the last fifteen minutes pacing the halls, waiting for his support system to arrive.

"She usually doesn't get here this early," Justin said, crossing his arms over his chest as he glared at his sister. "That's if she shows up at all. But I dragged her to school today. I told her she didn't want to miss this."

Alex grunted, eyes narrowed in her brother's direction. "And I told you to record it and put it up on YouTube," she replied, reaching into her jacket's pocket. "See this? It's called a cell phone, and it's got this tiny little camera on it that records things so people don't miss them."

Zeke's eyebrows raised, and Justin began chuckling as he took the item from his sister's hand.

"This is a Pop-Tart," he said, bringing it to his nose to sniff. "Strawberry. It's got these tiny little sprinkles on it that help fill you up so you won't be hungry until lunch time." He paused as he examined it closely. "Also lint. That's disgusting."

He handed it back to Alex, and for a moment the middle Russo considered eating it. Instead she picked the lint off, glancing around for someone to give the gift to.

Max had picked an unfortunate time to enter the building.

"Here, dude," she said, handing him the pastry, completely unaware of the fact that he was already carrying his own Pop-Tart in his other hand.

"Awesome!" Max shouted as he walked toward his locker. "Now I have two. I only need one more."

Justin started to follow, intrigued by his words and convinced this was something he was supposed to stop. That was his job as the oldest, of course. "One more? One more for what?"

Zeke's eyes widened as his best friend walked off. That wasn't part of the plan. Instead he was left with his best friend's sister – or, as an alternate title, his hopefully-future-girlfriend's best friend. He began fidgeting once again. As exhausted as he was, his nerves had caused his energy levels to skyrocket.

Alex, meanwhile, just sipped on her warm beverage before noticing the senior's moves. "Do you gotta go to the bathroom or something?"

He shook his head. "I'm gonna ask Harper out," he blurted out, hands covering his mouth after the words spilled out.

Alex didn't look shocked. She figured that was why she'd been dragged to school so early and why she wasn't allowed to tell her best friend she was leaving. Alex nodded, raising her coffee mug in his direction. "Good luck. And if you hurt her, I'll hurt you."

Zeke didn't answer, instead just swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat. He didn't doubt that Alex Russo could probably kill him. Actually, he was sure whatever punishment she came up with would be worse than death.

He wanted to reassure Alex that he wouldn't hurt Harper. He wouldn't dream of it. But instead he remained silent, sneakers moving back and forth on the tile floor, hands drumming upon his thighs.

Alex glanced toward the entrance, eyes finally opening up as she spotted her best friend. "Hey, here's your chance," she said, looking over to Zeke.

Apparently he'd spotted her at the same time, and instead ran off down the hall in the other direction. Alex was convinced she saw his body fly off in a blur, only leaving a Zeke-shaped cloud of smoke next to her. When she turned back around, there stood Harper.

"Alex? What are you doing here?"

Harper Finkle held Zeke's hoodie in her hands, prepared to give it back and thank him for the loan. She just had to find him first.

"I was just talking to…." Alex trailed off, hand waving through the invisible smoke. "Myself. I…don't even know how I got here. I was sleeping and then the next thing I knew I was…here."

"Fully dressed and holding coffee?" It seemed suspicious, but Harper knew stranger things had happened.

"Weird, I know. Maybe I was sleep-walking? Or…you know, I bet Justin had something to do with this! A spell, or…or a charm or potion or something. Yeah, that sounds realistic." She nodded, pointing in the direction her older brother had gone. "I'm gonna go find him and make him fix it because I've still got a few hours of sleep to get to. And I haven't seen Zeke. Bye!"

"Wait, Alex!" Harper called after her, hand reaching into her pocket to pull out her best friend's cell phone. "Your mom found this in the toaster! She asked me to give it to you!"

Alex was long gone, so Harper just slipped the phone back into her pocket. She'd give it to her later.

Harper was left confused. How did she know she was going to ask about Zeke?

The rest of Alex's ramble had made sense. Justin knew the best way to torture Alex was to make her come to school, and Harper was sure Mr. and Mrs. Russo would be ecstatic if they could find a way to get the rebellious teen into the classroom before lunch.

She shook her head. It was best to not try to figure it out.

Instead she walked to her locker, prepared to keep the hoodie safe until the end of the day. Then she'd hopefully see him at the water fountain.

She got goosebumps just thinking about it.

As she reached her locker, her eyes fell upon a small envelope taped over the lock. She glanced quickly to the left, then to the right, checking to see if she could figure out who had left it there.

Was it even for her? Her locker was right next to Penelope Carmichael's, and Penelope Carmichael received a lot of notes taped to her locker. Maybe this one was misdelivered.

She flipped it over, a tiny green alien head sticker sealing the flap.

Maybe it was for her after all.