Time Magic Lessons
"These self-defense lessons cannot keep ending like this." Sydney shifted under Joe's weight as he loomed over her.
Joe laughed as he continued to nuzzle and kiss her neck, his teeth occasionally adding a nibble here and there. His hands wandered down to her waist and slowly began to lift up her shirt. "Oh, come on. How often do we get moments alone together anymore? The kids are all taking naps. I say we take advantage of it." In one swift movement, Joe had taken off Sydney's shirt. His eyes drifted down to her bra. He half-glared, as if annoyed by its presence.
Sydney shook her head with a smile on her face. "You need to learn at least some basic self-defense. Have you even picked up anything?"
Joe stopped his passionate kisses and roaming hands. "Sure."
In the blink of an eye, Joe had switched positions. His legs restrained Sydney's legs together tightly and his hands shot up and pinned Sydney's wrists above her head on the floor.
"See? I got this whole self-defense thing down." Joe put on a cocky grin. "Now I can restrain you at any time I please."
"Oh?" Sydney said, a sly grin slowly appearing.
Joe nodded, clearly proud of himself. "I- oomph!"
Sydney hovered over top of him, holding him down in the same position he had her in before. "I wouldn't be so sure about that. You still have a lot to learn, like not to be so cocky. And I've yet to teach you how to fight back."
"Maybe I wanted to be on bottom." Joe winked at her.
Sydney rolled her eyes, but grinned at him anyway and leaned down to give him a kiss.
Their romantic moment was quickly ended when a loud crying erupted from the baby monitor.
Joe groaned and his hands dropped from Sydney's chest and butt to the floor. "Their timing could not be worse."
Sydney laughed and put her shirt back on. She rolled off of Joe and stood up. "It's just Lexi."
Joe stood up and joined his wife. "How can you tell?"
Sydney shrugged. "I don't know, maternal instinct? Lexi's cries are higher pitched than Riley's. Besides, Lexi is the one who's teething already. She just needs soothing. Come on, you know if we don't take care of her quickly, Riley will start crying too."
Joe followed Sydney out of her dance studio that they sometimes used for Joe's self-defense training.
"So, since I have self-defense down, can we start some time magic lessons?" Joe wrapped an around Sydney's waist.
Sydney sighed. "I just told you that you still have a lot to learn. You have a lot of work to do before you can start learning any time magic."
"But if I learned time magic, I could use it to defend myself."
"I think you need to learn to throw a punch or two first. Magic should not be used only as a weapon. It's very powerful, Joe. It's not for the weak of heart. Magic is power, and power is dangerous. I'm not ready to teach you magic yet anyway."
"But you said-"
"I know what I said," Sydney quickly interrupted him.
"Sydney, it's been over a year since we got back from After Time and Isis marked me as a Warp Wizard." Joe sighed. "If you haven't gotten used to it by now, when will you? Whatever the other Warp Wizards are like, I'm not like that. You have to trust me."
"I know that." Sydney glanced over her shoulder at him as she stepped into Lexi's nursery. She gently picked up the fussy Lexi and slowly tried to soothe her in her arms. Sydney smiled down on her youngest daughter.
"So why won't you show me any time magic then?"
The smile dropped from Sydney's face. "Fine. If you want to learn time magic that badly, then you'll learn time magic. Head back upstairs while I take care of Lexi and I'll meet you there when I'm done."
"Really?" Joe perked up. "You're really going to teach me time magic?"
"I suggest you go before I change my mind." Sydney sat down in a rocking chair with Lexi still in her arms. She reached for a neon pink teething ring to give to Lexi.
Joe grinned like a little kid on Christmas morning and practically ran upstairs to wait for Sydney.
It took almost thirty minutes for her to return and when she did, she appeared to be very unsure of herself.
Joe offered her a comforting grin. "I was worried you had changed your mind."
Sydney nervously scratched at her wrists. "I figured I should check on Riley too."
"In other words, you were stalling." Joe frowned. "If you don't think you can do this, I could try to find somebody else to teach me time magic."
Sydney shook her head. "No. I told you that I'd teach you and I meant it. You need to be taught this stuff. I just need to get over it and stop procrastinating with it."
"This is clearly not something you can just 'get over'."
"I'm trying." Sydney heaved a heavy sigh and sat down on the floor next to Joe, still occasionally scratching at her wrists. "It's just that every time I think about Warp Wizards, this overwhelming sense of anger and fear comes over me. No matter how hard I try, I can't stop it. All I end up with is a raging migraine."
Joe reached for her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "It'll be okay. The reason you're teaching me is so I don't end up like the other Warp Wizards. I'll just be a time magician, and every magician needs a beautiful assistant." He cupped her chin in his hand.
Sydney smiled softly and nodded her head once. "Right." She paused to take a deep breath. "First, you need to be able to connect to time. Once you can easily and quickly do that, we'll move on to the more challenging things like warping across time as well as to other worlds and warp illusions."
"Warp illusions?" Joe lifted an eyebrow at her. Joe had never heard the term before, but it sounded fascinating and Joe couldn't wait to learn it.
Sydney's grin widened. "You'll pick up more as we go. There's a lot to learn. But like I said, you need to be able to call time to you at any moment first."
"Call time to me? You mean like that thing you do with the time currents?"
Sydney nodded. "Exactly. But you need to be able to do it instantaneously without having to close your eyes and concentrate on it for ten minutes."
"And how do I do that?"
"If you keep calling it to you, time will recognize you and it will come quicker each time. Learning a few Latin commands wouldn't hurt either." Sydney flicked her wrist and a few wisps swirled around her, caressing her face.
Joe studied the glowing air around her. He'd never noticed it before, but he could feel the time energy moving, almost as if it was an extension of himself, but that extension felt… tainted. He looked closer at the green wisps Sydney had summoned. On the surface, they were a brilliant green colour, but if he looked close enough he could see a dark base underneath. Joe shook his head, probably nothing.
"How come you can do it so easily?" Joe closed his eyes and reached out to the time energy around them. He felt it shift, but it didn't move toward him.
"Years of training. And gods are automatically connected to time. It's one of the things that is different about our abilities compared to Warp Wizards."
"That makes sense. When we were in After Time and you had me warp us out, I saw strands of time energy flowing into Kerk and JJ."
"That's their lifelines. Cut a time god off from time energy and you'll kill them. Time flows through their veins. Warp Wizards aren't joined to time like the gods. You have to force a connection. Having gone into the time plane should make it a little easier for you since you've already forged that bridge once."
"Time plane?" Joe peeked one eye open to look at her. He was glad to see a few wisps of pure green time energy dancing around the room. Unlike what he felt with Sydney's, Joe's felt pure and it showed in their solid green colouring. "I think you're going to need to write a dictionary for me so I can keep all these terms straight."
Sydney laughed softly. "You'll get it eventually. There's a lot to grasp. The time plane is that place you went into in After Time, where you saw all the time energy flowing around and attached to JJ and Kerk. While your body stayed in this plane of existence, your spirit went into the time plane." Sydney paused and looked around the now green mist filled room. "Not bad. But you'll need to get quicker at it."
Joe sighed. "I'm trying. This meditating thing is hard."
Sydney laughed. "Well there's your problem. Stop meditating. Meditating is for connecting with yourself. You need to connect to time. Reach out, not in. Try using some Latin." Sydney waved her hands in a small starburst motion and all the time energy Joe had summoned up disappeared from the room.
"Latin… right." He looked at her with uncertainty in his eyes.
Sydney smiled and shook her head. "I'll make you a cheat sheet of basic Latin commands. For now, just think veni."
Joe closed his eyes again and mentally felt around the room for time energy. Veni…
He felt a surge of warmth flow into him, the same warmth that always came when he used his magic. He focused on that feeling and used it draw the time energy in.
He opened his eyes and immediately grinned. Time currents flowed and spun around them.
"See? It's not that hard. Soon you'll be able to do it without thinking about it or closing your eyes."
Joe groaned and fell back on the floor. "I didn't think there would be so much work involved."
"No one said this would be easy. Relax, you'll get it eventually. Don't be so hard on yourself. No one gets mastery magic skills immediately." Sydney leaned over and gazed down at Joe with a devilish grin. "And for every trick you master, you may receive a reward."
"I don't suppose I can get a reward for today's work?"
"Hmm… I don't know…"
Joe smirked and pulled her down for a deep kiss.
Sydney giggled and smiled into the kiss. "This again? At this rate we'll never get through any of your lessons."
Joe spoke between light kisses down her neck. His hands found their home just below her hips. "Like I said, we don't get enough alone time anymore. We need to take advantage of every second of it."
A/N - This is the shortest chapter I've written in a while. :P But it's the final set-up chapter before Dead Debts! So look for that next! I'l try to get it out as soon as possible! Don't forget to review, favourite, and follow! Thanks for reading!