Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Chapter 22 - Uncovering the Truth
3rd Person POV
Alex's eyes flew open at the sound of the alarm. She buried her face in her pillow and swatted blindly at her nightstand, only to realize the sound was coming from the clock on Mason's side.
"Mason, turn it off, turn it off," she rambled into her pillow. No response. "Mason, turn it off." She extended her arm to wake him, but she felt nothing. Her eyes snapped open.
She lifted her head up. "Mason?" She glanced over, only to find his side empty. She sighed. She rolled over to his side, getting caught in the sheets. She picked up the closest object to her, a remote under her pillow, and threw at Mason's night stand, sending the alarm clock flying off the table and into the wall. It finally shut up.
She picked up Mason's phone off the night stand. She smiled at the background, which was a picture of her, of course. Then, she saw it. A wide, childlike smile grew across her face. She thew off the sheets and danced out of the room.
"Morning, love," Mason smiled from the couch, "What's got you in such a good mood?"
"Do you know what today is?" Alex asked, almost shaking with excitement.
"Hm, what is so special about this certain day?" he joked playfully.
She nearly dove on the couch next to him. "Its Wednesday!" she cried excitedly. She hugged his arm, smiling like a kid on Christmas morning.
"No wonder you're so excited," he laughed.
She glanced at the watch on his wrist. "How long have you been up?" she asked curiously.
He looked at his watch too. "4:30am," he shrugged and sipped his coffee.
"4:30? Mason!"
"Sorry! I couldn't sleep!" He smirked at her. "I guess I was too excited." Alex smiled again.
The conversation was interupted by a phone call. Alex dove for the phone.
"Hello?" she answered frantically. Mason watched curiously as a huge, childlike smile grew across Alex's face. He instantly knew who it was.
She quickly calmed down, reminding herself that she needed to be a mature adult. "Yes, this is Leah Graybeck's parent." she paused. "Yes. An hour? Okay. Thank you...Yes, y-you have a good day too.." she gave a weird look as she set the phone on the coffee table, but smiled happily again. She turned to Mason, who was smiling just as wide.
xXxXxXxXxXx
"How much longer?" Leah asked Ms. Janine for the billionth time that morning. She tried to contain her excitement.
"Soon, Leah, very soon," she sighed, "And asking me every two minutes won't make them get here faster."
"Fine," she pouted. She stared out the window as Mrs. Janine tended to Trace, who had an ear infection. "How long now?"
Ms. Janine raised her eyebrow.
"That was three minutes," Leah informed her.
Janine sighed. "Trace! Stop wiggling! You're going to get eardrops whether you want to or not." She folded her arms over her chest at the toddler.
"No dwops! No dwops! No no no!" Trace argued, covering his ears with his hands. "No dwops for Twace!"
"Trace, you have to get the drops if you want your ears to feel better. Do you want your ears to feel better?"
"Yes," he nodded.
"Then let me put these drops in, okay?"
"NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!" he pressed his hands against his ears and buried his face in his knees.
Janine balled her hands into fists and faced the other direction. "The lord is testing me," she grumbled to herself. She walked to the bathroom, leaving Trace huddled to himself on the coffee table. Leah thought for a minute, smiled, and sat down beside him.
"Hi Trace," she smiled. Trace poked his head out just a smidge, smiled a little, then put his head back down.
"'scuse me, but I said hi, Trace," she repeated. He also repeated his actions. "You better say hey back to me boy!" she tickled his side, sending him into a laughing fit.
"dop it, dop it!" he laughed hysterically. She finally let him go. He caught his breath and replied, "Hi Yee-ah."
"What was all the yelling about earlier?" she asked him.
He pointed to the bottle of eardrops on the table. "No dwops," he told her.
"Why not?"
"Icky."
"What if it didn't feel icky? Would you take your drops like a big boy?"
Trace thought for a minute. Then nodded his head.
She put an arm around him. "I'll tell you what; if you let Ms. Janine give you your drops, I'll make sure they won't be icky. Deal?"
He stared into her eyes for a minute. In the back of his mind, a similar voice whispered, "Trust me, Trace. Be a big boy."
"Oh-tay, Yee-ah," he agreed, then added, "No icky, wight?"
"Right," she smiled, giving him a high five. He hopped off the coffee table and ran towards the other room, calling, "Mih Ja-een! Mih Ja-een! Dwops!"
Janine gave him a quizzical glance. "Did I hear you right? You want eardrops?"
"Uh huh! Do dwops!" He pulled her to the couch and handed her the bottle.
"Okay, ready?"
Trace looked at Leah. She gave him a wink. He tried to wink back, but ended up blinking both eyes. "Weddy!" he cocked his head to the side. Leah closed her squeezed her eyes shut. She concentrated. She thought deeper and deeper. She pictured herself blocking the eardrops with her hand as Ms. Janine poured them in his ear. She reopened her eyes.
Trace opened his eyes afterwards. He gasped. "No icky! No icky!" he cheered. He jumped up and down excitedly on the couch. Janine's eyes widened.
"What's gotten into you, Trace?" she asked in alarm. Trace took off running. Janine glanced at Leah in surprise. "What did you do?"
Leah smiled. "He didn't like the 'icky' feeling, so I blocked it." She shrugged and started off towards the other room, leaving her in total confusion.
"How did you do that?" a voice asked her. She spun around to find Ink behind her.
"Do what?"
"Whatever you did to Trace. I haven't seen the kid so excited since his birthday two months ago."
She folded her arms over her chest. "Can't tell you."
"Why not?"
She looked at him straight in the eye. "You still haven't told me!"
He raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
A black wand appeared in her hand. She held it out to him. "This!"
He checked his back pocket. "Gimme that!" he grabbed it back and placed it where it was supposed to be.
"Well I'm not telling anything else. You have some serious explaining to do, Ignatius Keaton."
They stared into each other's eyes angerly. Leah scruntched her nose. Before either of them could say another word, a flash of white smoke filled the room. Ink coughed as Leah rubbed her eyes.
"Are you alright, love?" a familiar British accent asked between coughs. Leah's head snapped up.
Another familiar voice started coughing too. "Yeah. Hmpf, you'd think after five years or so they'd come up with a less harmful way of flashing in," she shuddered a little. "Did your ears pop? Now I see what Mom was always talking about."
The smoke cleared, revealing three people. Leah gasped. A wide smile grew across her face.
"Uh, Lee?" he whistled and waved his hand in front of her motionless face. "Hello? Ding dong, earth to Leah!"
"Momma! Daddy!" Leah cried. She dashed across the room.
Alex spun around. The sight of her daughter lit up her entire face. "Leah!" she cried. She opened her arms as she bent down to her level. Leah jumped into her mother's arms, smiling a mile wide. Alex hugged her daughter close, feeling a tiny tear slip out of her eye. Mason joined in, wrapping his arms securely around both of them.
Professor Crumbs, standing behind them, couldn't help but slip out a little smile. He hadn't seen a family as close as they were in a long time. He thought back to before the competition was even a worry. He found it amazing that Alex Russo of all people, who didn't care much about family back in her teen years, was standing before him, nearly crying when she saw her daughter for the first time in three days. Its amazing what a little love, or true love, can do to a person.
He snapped out of it. "Alright. Talk, show each other around, hug, cry, whatever you want, as long as you stay here. Alex, Mason, I'll be back in an hour to take you home." And with that, he was gone.
xXxXxXxXxXx
At the sub station
Harper adjusted her strawberry muffin top hat as she brought out an order of sandwiches to the cash register area, where Alex, Mason, and Jerry were seated at the bar stools. Hailey and Max were occuping the table in front of them.
"How do you think she's adjusting? Has she made any friends?" Hailey asked Alex curiously.
"Well, there's only four other kids besides her. There's a two year old boy, who's as cute as can be. Then she told us about the twins, who are half cucuy-"
"Cucuy?" Hailey asked, still new to the whole magic thing. She gave Max a blank stare.
"Latin monsters. They can scare the pants off of you if you cross their path. So, their kind of like Alex." Max laughed. Mason chuckled a little. Alex elbowed him in the stomach, still a little sensitive about the cucuy incident when they were teens.
"And there's this one boy around her age," Mason added, "What was his name? Lead?"
"Ink," Alex corrected. "There was a little tension in her eye when she talked about him."
"Oo la la, what kind of tension does this mean?" Harper laughed, "Like a nemisis? Or like a crush?" She batted her eyelashes dramatically.
Mason groaned. "Just what every dad wants; his five year old daughter having boy drama."
Jerry patted him on the back, "I hear you. Alex wasn't much better at that age. Who was that boy you were so obsessed with a while back? That boy you were determind to 'marry' until you found out he was one of Justin's friends?"
Alex blushed as Mason chuckled. "It was preschool, thank you very much," she scoffed. "Speaking of Justin, where is he?"
Jerry shrugged. "He hasn't left the lair in two days."
Hmm..what's Ink hiding form Leah? What's Justin up to? Chapter 23 coming soon :)
BTW, sorry for the forever long wait, but I've been pretty busy lately. But don't worry, I'm back to my no-life self :D
Twitter - ShayDenney311
Review? :)