Disclaimer: Disney owns Wizards of Waverly Place. No profit is being made from this story.

Author's Note: Thank you thank you THANK YOU for the encouragement! I really do appreciate those who took the time to leave a review. I know that reviews are usually meant to just give suggestions to the writers, but a simple 'I really like this story, please update' or mere thoughts on what about the story you didn't like, really does make a difference in a writer's ego. For me, especially, it makes me wants to write faster. Please stay with me as I go on with the story.

Also, I'm not sure if this would be a warning or a notice, but the chapters will surely get longer from now on. I figured it would be better this way, because short chapters tend to go nowhere with stories like this.

Anyway, here is the third installment to the story. Please read and review! ^_^

A Familiar Pattern 3

By genielou

Max reduced himself to chuckles before approaching his older brother. "You know, I always knew that this was going to surprise you and I've tried imagining the look on your face when you finally see her," he declared in between giggles. "But seeing you like this does not even compare to what I had in my head."

Before Justin could reply, he saw his parents finally recognize him.

"Justin! You're home!" Theresa exclaimed as she jogged to him and gave him a hug.

Jerry patted him hard on the back. "It's great to have you here, son. I thought you weren't due until later this afternoon."

"Well, uh," Justin stammered before giving up and pointing at Max. Jerry just gave Max a pointed look while Max tried to avoid eye contact.

"Oh, whatever. It's still great to have my son back," Theresa said as she pulled him into a hug again. "I know you must be tired, sweetheart, but would you mind giving us a hand before resting? We're really swamped."

At Justin's smile and nod, Jerry ordered Max to help him carry his bags up to the leased apartment on the upstairs of the Substation. After settling his things in Justin's old room, Max quickly took off to join the fight against the brunch rush. Justin couldn't help but remain in his room longer than he had intended, to admire the memories he held within it. Nostalgia overtook him as time seemed to have stopped in that tiny room that held his identity throughout his adolescent development.

He quickly put on deodorant, cologne, and his own shirt, and then made his way back down to the restaurant. He recognized his younger sister, despite the shorter and curled hair that she now had, slowly making her way pass the spiral staircase that he ran down of, carrying a tub of dirty dishes. Justin jogged towards her, grabbed the tub, and headed to the kitchen without a word to her, leaving her with her mouth open. She quickly followed him to the sink.

"Justin, you're back!" she said as she spread her arms. He welcomed it wholeheartedly, and couldn't help but notice the lack of difference in their heights. Their shoulders unfamiliarly leveled. The blue streaks underneath her natural black hair didn't escape his eyes either. She pushed back as she gave him a pointed look. "Wait, you're not supposed to be here yet. Did Max zap you here?"

Justin nodded. "Yup. It wasn't a soft landing."

Alex grinned and gave a not-so-feminine chuckle. "Nice one, Max," she said to herself. "We'll catch up later. I got a lot of tables to clean."

She quickly headed back into the main room of the substation with a towel in hand. The day passed by quickly as Justin helped with his family's business; taking orders, making sandwiches, and manning the cash register along with his parents. He willfully left the table-cleaning and dish-washing to his two siblings. Every so often, he saw his former best friend wave at him, and Justin wanted so much to have a decent conversation with him but the rush seemed to continue on until the late afternoon. By the time the restaurant's maximum reduced down to a mere five tables, Zeke had already gone and left.

After locking up the entrance doors and placing the Closed sign on the window, Justin headed towards the kitchen and made himself a large veggie sub. He sat down at a table where Max and Alex had already settled themselves with their own sandwiches. They both noticed his choice of size.

"Dude, hungry much?" Max commented.

Justin, in turn, eyed Max's small BLT sandwich and the bowl of lettuce leaves next to it. "How about you? Are you not hungry at all?"

"Oh, he is. Trust me, he is very, very hungry," Alex replied with a mouthful of potato chips. "But mom put him on a diet. I mean, look at him. She is not liking the look."

"I'm not sure why either. Look at Dad," Max said as he stuffed a handful of lettuce leaves into his mouth. "He's bigger than me."

Justin took a bite of his sub. "I've been meaning to ask you about that, Max. What happened? You got taller, which is good," he took a sip of his water. "But you grew wider too."

"Dad thinks it's the Russo gene," Max replied knowingly, he took a big gulp of his orange soda. "He said the guys in the family always grow up to be big. It might happen to you too, you know."

Justin grimaced at the thought. He took another bite of his sub before turning to Alex. "Where's Harper?"

Both Alex and Max halted their chewing and gave him a suspicious look.

"Why do ask?" Alex challenged.

Justin swallowed and bit into his sandwich again. "Just curious."

"You're curious about Harper?"

"Am I not allowed to be?"

"But you've never been curious about her before."

"She's part of the family. Of course I'd be curious."

"Why do you care?" Max chimed in.

Justin gave him a wary look. "I don't."

"So you don't care where she is?"

"I do care."

"So you care about Harper."

"Geez, I was just asking where she was," Justin exclaimed as he set his sandwich down. "What is with the interrogation?"

Max and Alex exchanged looks and laughed. Justin chugged the remainder of his water in irritation.

"Oh relax, Justin," Alex told him. "She's busy. Actually, she'll be very busy this summer so I'd be surprised if you even see her at all."

"What is she busy with?"

"She got accepted into a special summer program at school."

Justin looked at her, confused. "But didn't you two graduate a few weeks ago?"

Alex rolled her eyes. "Not high school, you loser. And thanks for not being at my graduation, by the way." Justin averted his gaze guiltily. Alex suppressed her annoyance and continued to explain. "Harper and I both got accepted at the Art Institute, remember? We're starting next semester. But they liked Harper's portfolio so much that they offered for her to start early."

"Wait, Harper actually had a portfolio?" Justin asked with an incredulous look on his face.

"Man, you have been gone way too long," Max declared. "Even I thought her stuff was good."

Max set his sandwich down and wiped his hands on his pants. He took out his wand, waved it around, and black canvas folder suddenly appeared on top of his sandwich. He flinched when he saw ketchup on the folder as he lifted it.

"Oops," he said, wiping it off with a napkin. "Here, take a look."

Justin took the folder and carefully flipped through its plastic pages. He skimmed through it, not completely appreciating the drawings of potential clothing designs. But once he reached the pictures of the actual finished products, he slowed his pace to look through them one by one.

"Wow," he wondered aloud. "They're not that bad."

He settled on a page of a man's long-sleeved, button up shirt. The design consisted of what seemed like a black splatter that originated from the right shoulder. But upon a closer look, he concluded that the black splatter on the shirt actually took on the subtle shapes of what could be butterflies. The corner of his lip slightly rose as he realized that although the designs were intended to fit the mainstream's taste, they still maintained a slight Harper-ized style to them.

Max leaned in to take a look at the basis of Justin's attraction. "Yeah, I like that one too," he said. "She promised she'd give it to me on my eighteenth birthday.'

Alex stuffed the last bit of her sandwich and a swig of rootbeer. "Anyway," she said after swallowing. "Harper is dorming near the college. She comes home on the weekends only. So if you want to see her, you're gonna have to wait."

She got up from the table with her dishes in hand. Justin stared at her as she walked away, while Max stuffed more lettuce leaves into his mouth.

"Don't mind her, Justin. I doubt she'd stay mad at you for too long," Max said in between chews. "By the way, I have a business proposition for ya. How would you like to invest on bannapples? You see, it's a hybrid fruit. And I am on my way to perfecting it soon."

Days passed by as Justin slowly settled himself into his old home. He unpacked his bags and replaced them into the dresser drawers, and even started wearing old clothes that he found in his closet. The busy hours in the restaurant continued as more students, both from high school and colleges, were released for vacation and crowded the Waverly Substation. The hours for each day seemed to pass too quickly as he helped ease the labor strain from his family.

As he lay in bed one night trying to ignore the summer heat, he couldn't help but think of the changes that had occurred in his home, both the subtle and the obvious changes. The subtle changes were definitely his parents, who seem to have calmed their usual childish antics, but that might just be because the restaurant had been keeping them too tired to even try. Alex's changes dwindled in between subtle and obvious. Her physical appearance definitely surprised Justin; as he was so used to holding on to her much smaller frame. Now she was much taller than he could have imagined her to be. And her speech was less sarcastic. Still sarcastic, but less so compared to a year ago. The hair slightly surprised him, but it was nothing that he would not have expected from her.

Max, on the other hand, threw him off a bit. He still had that same unique smile, and the noticeable twinkle in his eyes whenever he thought of an idea, of which would surely result in failure, popped into his head. But his face, for some reason, had expanded; as did everything else in his body. This was something that usually happens when a person gets older, but Max seemed to be going through it at a much younger age. Not that he was fat in an unattractive sense, he was just merely bigger. He was definitely starting to look like their father, which would prove to serve Max's previous claims true: that there was just more of him to love.

Justin sat up and took off his shirt, clearly seeing the sweat that dampened parts of it as he tossed it aside. His mind wandered to Zeke as he lay back down.

Zeke. Geez, what had happened to him? He was so skinny when Justin last saw him, and now- - now, he didn't even look like Zeke. The only reason that Justin became absolutely convinced that it was really him was because Zeke cheerfully greeted him in alien language while holding up a hand in trekky signage. Having a very bulky, young man who could easily twist Justin's neck outwardly blabber "boop-a-lee-bee-du-bap-doo" with a grin on his face was definitely an awkward sight to see.

And lastly, Harper. Justin didn't even know what to think of her. And for the life of him, he wanted to know so badly why his mind kept reminiscing of her. Seeing how she had developed in a mere year's time had been nothing short of a shock to him. The way she was dressed was something he could easily accept, as he had never been entire opposed to her creativity when it came to her choice of clothes. But the difference in her physicality, and the way she presented herself hinted no similarities to how he remembered Harper to be at all. The Harper he remembered was jittery, always waving her arms about, and practiced daily what he liked to call the 'teenager posture,' a term to describe a teenager's habit to hunch over instead of taking better precautions at their presentation. This new Harper, though, stood very still and almost seemingly posed a-la-vogue with even the slightest turn of her body. And she stood quite tall and proud on her very high heels. She was definitely not the Harper that Justin remembered.

So why did his mind kept going back to her. Was it curiosity? It had to be. It couldn't be anything else. She and Zeke were the ones who changed the most, so his mind would consequently be more curious about them than anyone else. Once Justin is able to finally talk to them, he'll get the closure that he needs to secure his curiosity, and all of his nonsense thinking will surely go away. It was just pure curiosity. That had to be what it was.

Sweat started to build up on his bare chest. Exasperated, he got up and walked over to the window. He pulled at its handle and grunted as he tried to push it open. Unfortunately, after almost a year of it being closed, there was just too much gunk keeping it shut. After three more tries, Justin finally gave up and decided to step out of his bedroom. He made his way towards the studio area of the apartment that held the living room and the kitchen, to find the balcony doors wide open. The chill that came through felt amazingly relieving on his exposed skin.

He cocked a brow but then noticed the light emanating from the television of the living room, and saw a head of dark hair sticking out from the top of the couch.

"Alex?" he asked while squinting, as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dim lighting. "What are you doing up so late?"

He saw her shoulders stiffen when she heard his voice. Justin walked towards the refrigerator and opened it. "You're working the early shift tomorrow," he said sternly while he opened a bottle of water. "Don't think that I'll be nice enough to cover it for you. I'm not quite ready to give up my late morning naps just yet."

He took a swig from his bottle, and sighed loudly after gulping cold water down. The television content grabbed his attention. "You're watching CNN?" he asked exasperated. "Since when do you care what's happening to the rest of the world?"

He walked over and settled himself next to her. "God, I can't believe how hot it is tonight." He pressed the cool bottle onto his chest, and let the chilled moisture slide down his stomach.

When he noticed the overflowing bowl of popcorn that she held, he reached over and grabbed a handful, accidently dropping some on her lap.

"Oops, sorry," he said, quickly shoving the popcorn into his mouth and reaching over again to brush the popcorn off of her shorts and thigh. He noticed her stiffen again when his fingertips touched her skin. "What is with you?" he asked, finally looking at her. "Are you, like, germaphobic now or somethi- -"

It was then that he noticed the reddish shade that the television light caused to shine on her short hair. Her skin was relatively much lighter than his sister's, and her cheeks noticeably round on her thinned face. The usually round eyes that she bore were even rounder as they widened at the sight of him, her gaze flicking back and forth from his face to his bare chest, and then to his face again. He felt himself inadvertently stiffen, and was almost sure that he displayed a similarity to her feature in his expression.

"Hey, Justin," she managed after gulping. "You're back?"

"Uhm," he choked out, the tone of his voice higher than he would've like. "Hey there. Harper."