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New Year’s Eve, 2009
“Aren’t you supposed to get a kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve?” Alex asked, feet propped on the coffee table, remote in hand.
Justin set the large glass bowl on the kitchen counter as the microwave beeped, both noises working to give him a moment to calibrate his response.
“Sure. If you’ve got someone to kiss. Which you don’t, clearly…” he paused, smirking at the scowl she shot back at him. It was almost too easy to get under her skin.
“... and which I don’t, because…” he paused again, this time remembering that he was supposed to be sad about the next part, despite the absurdity of the statement, “… because she was taken by a mummy.”
Alex flipped around in place, propping her arms on the back of the couch. She watched him, trying to gauge how he was feeling about the situation just then, but he wasn’t giving her much to go on.
“You’ll find her, Justin.” she said, settling on the safe option.
He didn’t meet her eyes as he shook the bag of popcorn into the bowl.
“Yeah.” he said.
He should find her.
He just didn’t know how much he missed her anymore.
The kitchen clock read 11:12. Still a ways to go until midnight.
He made his way over to the couch and plopped down next to Alex, handing her the bowl as he did so.
“What do you want to watch?” he asked, grabbing the remote from her.
She still had her eyes trained on him, but when he didn’t show any sign of wanting to continue the conversation about Juliet, she decided to drop it.
“Mm, whatever you want, I don’t care.” she said, fighting the urge to suggest Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Twilight just to get a rise out of him. She didn’t want him to burst into tears just yet, so she was still treading carefully when it came to the subject.
He nodded as he began to flip through the options on the screen, reaching over to grab a handful of popcorn from the bowl perched in her lap as he did so. He settled on the channel gearing up to play the ball drop in Times Square. Lights and colors flashed on the screen, the New Year’s Eve preshow playing in the meantime.
“We could go to that sometime, you know. Kind of silly that we never have, seeing as we live here and all.” Justin said.
Alex eyed the screen, watching as the camera panned across crowds of people decked out in New Year’s glasses, hats, and strings of beads.
“Mm, waiting for hours… down in that crowd? No thanks. Probably not even that good of a view.” she said, tossing a piece of popcorn into her mouth.
Justin nodded, a thoughtful look on his face as he grabbed another handful.
“We could take the flying carpet.” he said after a moment.
Alex turned to look at him, eyebrow raising in surprise.
“Justin Russo, superfluous usage of magic? That’s not like you.”
He scoffed and stuttered for a moment before saying, “Well it’s not like you to use the word superfluous, so we can call it even.”
Alex laughed, extending her foot to nudge him in the ribs with her foot.
“Kidding, nerd.” she said, and then after a moment, “Tonight?”
“Yeah. Why not?” he said, her foot still in his lap where she’d dropped it, his hand hovering above her ankle as though it might fall to rest on her skin at any moment.
Yeah. Yeah that sounded fun. And she felt some strange responsibility to help him get his mind off of things, so sure.
“Alright, yeah let’s do it.” she said.
Justin smiled and nodded.
“Alright. Put something warm on, it’ll be chilly up there.” he said.
They met out on the terrace, the brisk night air turning their breath into clouds around them. It was fairly quiet on Waverly Place, but Alex could make out the thrum of partying emitting from the city below.
“Are you sure you’ll be warm enough?” Justin asked, surveying her choice of jacket. She looked down at the thick flannel lined sleeves. It was his jacket, from a few years ago. Not one in current rotation, clearly. He’d started working out recently and had retired some older clothes that had gotten too snug in the shoulders.
Not that she’d noticed that… she’d simply noticed that he wouldn’t be wearing this jacket anytime soon when she’d adopted it into her closet. Which sure, did take a bit of the fun out of her beloved activity of “stealing Justin’s favorite things from his room”... the whole schtick only worked if it was something he’d notice was missing.
But it was a good jacket.
“Yeah, I think so.” she said.
“Good.” he nodded, reaching out and rubbing the hem of it between his fingers, as if he was remembering the times that he’d worn it himself.
He didn’t comment on it being his.
Their breath lingered warm in the space between them, and there was a faint alarm bell going off somewhere in the back of her mind, attempting to warn her that one of them had missed their cue to tease the other about something, but the moment came and went before she could conjure anything up.
A firework went off behind Justin, drawing the siblings' attention to the sky.
“We should get going, it must be getting close to midnight.” Justin said.
“Yeah.” Alex said, drawing closed the jacket zipper, shivering her shoulders habitually with the motion.
“You know, I haven’t actually driven this thing since I gave you that lesson.” Justin said as he brushed off the passenger side of the carpet.
Alex smiled. So much had happened since then, and yet the memory felt like it was just yesterday in her mind.
…with you it’s easy!
Followed by Justin’s voice, warm and encouraging…
I knew you could.
It was one of those memories she’d played back so many times in her head since then that she wondered if she hadn’t played it out. Forcing it to lose a bit of truth somewhere along the line. That’s the problem with favorite memories. You revisit them so many times over the years in an attempt to get back there again, not realizing you’ve left a fragment of yourself there each time.
“Ready?” Justin said, holding out his hand to help her onto the levitating carpet.
“Yeah, I think so.” she said.
His hand felt warm and slightly rough against her own, and she squeezed her fingers against his palm as a wordless ‘thank you’ as she climbed up onto the right side of the carpet.
Something like a light bulb went off on his face.
“I’ll be right back.” he said, and she turned around in surprise to see him running back inside.
Another firework went off from somewhere in the city, distant, and muffled by the buildings in between, but cracking out through the night anyway. There was that charged feeling in the air, like the whole city was momentarily removed from the tedium of daily life, sounds of celebration bubbling up from the streets.
She wondered for a moment if it wasn’t strange that their New Year’s Eve plans wound up unquestionably including each other in light of no significant others to share the evening with. It felt like one of the more romantically inclined holidays, and she wondered if there wasn’t something premonitional about the new year ahead based on who you spend the start of it with.
She was fine locking in whatever she and Justin had at the moment for the year to come.
The terrace door opened and shut behind her and Justin was back at her side, tossing the thick woven knit blanket from her room over her folded legs.
“I just feel like it’ll be colder up there than we think. Better safe than sorry.” he said, tucking in the edges.
She smiled.
“Justin, we’re wizards, we could have just magicked a blanket up there.”
He shrugged as he made his way around to his side of the carpet, climbing up before pulling his jacket open to reveal two miniature bottles of champagne.
“I forgot, I got these for us too, I thought it’d be fun to have a sip of something bubbly at midnight to celebrate.” he said.
Alex feigned a gasp and held her hand to her chest, “Underage drinking and magic carpet driving? That’s a lot of rules for you to break in one go, are you sure that’s how you want to start the new year?”
He rolled his eyes and held one of the bottles out for her to see.
“They’re non-alcoholic, I grabbed them from the corner store earlier.” he said.
“Oh, cool. Alright.” she said with a nod.
Not strange at all.
The alarm bells were once again going off in her head, triggered this time however by the feeling that seemed to rise in her chest at the thought of Justin preplanning any part of this evening.
“Okay, hopefully I remember how to drive this thing.” Justin said with a deep breath in as he took the edge of the carpet in hand.
“Oh, don’t worry, you’re a pro.” Alex said with a laugh, somewhere between sarcastic and sincere, pulling the blanket a little closer and settling in beside Justin.
He smirked.
“Mmhm, don’t you forget it.” he said with a nod as they lifted off the ground.
And she wasn’t sure if it was the jesting cockiness that he said that statement with or the sudden vertigo of the ascent that made her heart flutter, but she couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that escaped her chest as they took off. She tightened her grip on the blanket as the cold night air rushed over her face, and she was hit with something more free than she’d felt in a long time. It was an ecstatic feeling in her chest, and she had the sudden urge to freeze time and save the moment forever.
Taking off with Justin, on a spur of the moment adventure like this… she wouldn’t articulate it to anyone, but these were the moments she lived for.
It was all she’d been wanting to do since Puerto Rico that last summer. She felt like she’d gotten more than a little addicted to quality time with her brother ever since their days in the jungle. Something about the combination of having everything on the line… and yet feeling so free for the first time in years… those moments when it was just the two of them alone on the very edge of the world. It seemed to have done something to rewire her brain, and she’d be lying if she said that she wasn’t tweaking out just a bit pretty much the entirety of this last fall, with moments where it’s finally just the two of them feeling farther and farther in between.
Was she a terrible person if some part of her wished that it was just the two of them, on the edge of the world again?
There was a brief moment, running around that resort with her brother on that hazy overcast day, trying to track down their parents in the initial aftermath of everything… prior to finding out about the full ramifications of the spell… that Alex became aware of an unusual thought crossing her mind.
If they couldn’t fix this… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. And she found herself fleshing out a reality in which their parents never remembered them, and they were left to start over on their own, and there seemed to be something so enticing about the idea of setting up house with Justin, because of course they’d have to take care of Max, and thus would need to establish something of a household, and maybe it could have a terrace with a garden, and blue curtains, and…
And then the weight of everything set in, and everything felt like the end of the world, and she tried not to live too much in that imagined reality again.
But it was still a nice dream. Especially when they were lying back to back on the forest floor. She’d fallen asleep that night imagining they’d fallen asleep back to back by the fireplace in their new home.
The underlying factor that made it all okay was simply the fact that Justin was there, in whatever imagined reality, and for the most part she’d let that strange little fantasy go…
But lifting up over the streets of Waverly Place just then, glancing over to see the city lights casting shadows on Justin’s smiling face… she felt closer to the essence of that dream than she had in a while.
She remembered when they were on the plane flying back into New York from Puerto Rico, when she’d realized she’d have to go back to reality and let any lingering thoughts of that fantasy subside. She’d shelved the feelings then, but moments like this made her feel like maybe the essence of the dream wasn’t entirely lost.
The air swirled around her for a moment, lifting the curls around her face, the sudden chill bringing a near tear to her eye.
Justin nudged her knee with his.
“Sure it’s not going to be too cold up here?” he asked, his eyes trained in front of him.
She scooted over just a little, tossing the blanket just a bit more over him so it covered the both of them evenly, careful not to bump either of his arms and mess up his steering.
“You worrywart, no, I’m going to be fine. I’m starting to feel like you might freeze though.” she said.
He just smiled, eyes still focused on the sky in front of him.
They were nearing Times Square, although Justin had flown them fairly high up so as to avoid being seen.
“Oh wow, look!” Alex said as they got close enough to view the event.
“Neat, right?” Justin smiled.
The bird’s eye view of the celebration below was truly something to be seen. The lit up city grid of New York accentuated by the colorful lights of the event made the entire view seem almost like something from a movie. Civilizations that had risen and fallen would envy the sight before her.
Justin slowed the carpet to a stop, leaving them levitating far enough above and to the side of the commotion so as to avoid being seen.
“Sure we aren’t going to get hit by any fireworks?” Alex asked.
Justin laughed.
“I… don’t think so. They should all be going off in front of us and over the water, this airzone here is blocked off from professional fireworks.”
Alex nodded.
“You researched that?”
Justin looked over to her, meeting her eyes. The midnight hour and height of their ascent should have lent itself to pitch blackness, but the nearly full moon and the glow of the city made it so she could almost clearly make out the expression on his face.
He nodded.
“Yeah. This afternoon.” he said.
So it wasn’t a spur of the moment idea.
The alarm bells may have returned in the back of her mind, but this time they were drowned out by the explosions beginning to go off in front of them.
The red glow from a sudden firework lit up Justin’s face, and the softness of his expression hit her like a wave.
“Oh.” she said.
Was this a date?
No.
You can’t go on a date with your brother.
Then again… the two of them had always done things just a bit differently than everyone else.
Whatever it was… she was glad for it.
Justin pulled the bottles of faux champagne out of his jacket and handed one to her.
“I think it’s only a few minutes away now.” he said.
She took the bottle and spun it round in her hand. It was cute, fancy, shiny label and a real cork.
Justin tore the foil off the top of his.
“Ready?” he asked, wiggling the cork in place with his thumb to loosen it, something joyful in his eyes.
She nodded and followed suit, crumbling the foil and shoving it in the thickly lined jacket pocket.
“Ready.” she said, gripping the bottle tight with one hand and using her other to loosen the cork.
Justin held eye contact with her and mouthed ‘One, two,…’ as she nodded her head along with the beats of his silent counts, smile on her face.
‘...three’ and they both popped the corks free.
Alex laughed and leaned slightly forward as if she could see where they fell, but found herself stopped short by Justin’s arm across her chest.
“Sorry, reflex.” he said as she sat back up, her hand not holding the bottle now clutched to his arm, holding it to her chest.
“What, worried I’ll fall off?” she said, rubbing her thumb in place, tracing the shape of his forearm through the thick fabric of his jacket. She could feel the warmth of his skin despite the layers in between.
They were ridiculously high up, the tallest buildings of the city far below them.
“I’d catch you.” he said, and the certainty in his voice and look in his eye took her right back to the cave in Puerto Rico, her feet slipping on the rocks beneath her…
‘I’ve got you, I won’t let you fall.’
His voice echoed in her mind. The memory of him pulling her to his chest, warm and solid, the sound of their panting breaths echoing in the damp cave… Justin holding her tightly to him right up to the end of the world.
She’d tried not to play that one out.
“Do you ever think about Puerto Rico?” she asked, dropping his hand to her lap.
“Yeah. All the time.” he said.
“Really? Which part?” she asked.
“You mean besides the obvious?”
“Yeah, besides the obvious.”
He held her gaze for a long moment, as if he was trying to transmit the essence of a memory through that alone.
“I think about it all.” he said, turning his hand in her lap and almost hesitantly seeking out her own.
“Sorry, again, about all of that… causing that whole mess and all.” Alex said, surprised by the warmth of his hand covering hers.
Justin raised an eyebrow, and for a moment she thought he was going to point out the rarity of a genuine apology from her.
But instead he just shook his head.
“I don’t think about it like that.” he said.
Alex froze. There was the “look at this giant mess Alex created that I have to fix, again” aspect of “Puerto Rico”... and then there was everything else that they had yet to talk about. So if it wasn’t that…
His fingers fell into a gentle interlacing with her own.
“Sometimes I think I live in memories of that trip more than I do in the day to day.” he said.
Alex nodded. She knew what he meant.
She just hadn’t thought he was feeling the same way.
“Cheers.” he said, holding out the tip of his bottle to clank with her own, “Sorry I didn’t bring any glasses.”
“No, it’s perfect.” she said with a smile, “Cheers.”
They each took a sip as another set of fireworks began to go off in front of them, blue, red, green, and gold filling the sky in cascading sparks.
“Thanks for spending New Year’s Eve with me.” she said.
Justin held her eyes, weighing his words.
“Wouldn’t want to spend it with anyone else.” he said after a moment.
“Well… I mean, Juliet if you could obviously, right?” she said, and she instantly kicked herself for even bringing up her name. She certainly didn’t care to think of her at the moment.
Justin took another sip of faux champagne, nursing it for a moment as if it contained real alcohol.
“No. I’d rather be with you.” he said.
Alex felt like her heart was in her throat. That didn’t mean… that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Distance between him and that blonde bloodsucker, and a preference for his sister’s company on New Year’s Eve, didn’t necessarily imply anything out of the ordinary, for them…
“What about…?” she trailed off.
“I mean, I’ll find her, of course. I wouldn’t want… but I don’t think I’ll want to… be with her again.” he said.
“Oh.” she said. That was news to her.
“We were never really right for each other, and she’s not… we were just never really right for each other. I think I just saw… something that should make sense for me. And I wanted it to be right. But I think I wanted to be in a relationship just to… I don’t know. Prove that it was something else I could be perfect at.”
Alex nodded. She squeezed his hand against her own.
“Yeah, that makes sense.” she said. Only in about the most Justin way, but sure, that made sense.
Justin cleared his throat. Another firework went off in front of them. Gold and green cascading down in the sky.
“So, yeah, I’d want to be here with you no matter what.” he said.
Alex decided to push her luck this time. And it was only then that she realized that those alarm bells going off in the back of her mind this whole evening had perhaps been her subconscious ringing out to her ‘...it’s happening!’
“Well…I mean if you had a girlfriend…” she said, her tone dangerously toeing the line between genuine questioning and something borderline… flirtatious. Light enough to be in line with their usual banter, but if examined too closely…
Justin stared directly into her eyes, seemingly attempting to leave as little room for interpretation as possible without yet saying anything entirely new.
“Alex, I’d rather be here with you than anyone. In fact, I’d rather be with you than anyone else pretty much all of the time.” he said.
“Oh.” she said, willing her brain to catch up, “Good. Me too.”
Justin’s eyes crinkled at the edges from his smile. Alex wanted nothing more to stare into those very eyes forever.
Another set of fireworks went off in front of them, red this time, and Justin squeezed her hand one last time before finishing off the last of what was in his bottle and placing it in his jacket pocket. He held his hand out for hers, and she took another sip before handing it to him. He recorked her bottle, and it was only then that she realized he’d been the more responsible one and managed to catch his cork before it went flying into the streets below.
Whatever. She’d reduce-reuse-and-recycle later.
“What do you think 2010 will hold?” she asked.
Justin smiled as he tucked her bottle into his jacket as well.
“Mmm, not quite sure, but I think it will be something good.” he said.
They heard the countdown begin from down below, the sound system for the event blasting it into the sky.
Ten, nine, eight…
Justin slung his arm around Alex’s shoulders, drawing her closer to him.
…seven, six, five…
“Happy New Year, Alex.” he said, face turning towards hers, just inches from her own.
She could see the reflections of the fireworks going off behind her in his eyes. Blue and red and green and gold.
…four, three, two…
Justin searched her eyes for a moment, and, seeming to find whatever he was looking for, ducked his head down to let his lips meet her own.
The sounds of fireworks and celebration from down below should have been deafening, but it seemed to be background noise in comparison to the space created between them just then.
It couldn’t have lasted longer than a few moments, but the sensation of it seemed to stretch into eternity. His lips felt so soft and perfect against her own, and he suddenly seemed to be all she could feel.
They pulled back after a moment, Justin’s arm still slung around her shoulder, their faces still only inches apart.
She stared into his eyes, attempting to catch her breath and her thoughts, but frozen by the vision of how perfect he looked in the light. Soft and glowing. All she’d ever wanted.
“So you do get a kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve.” she said after a moment.
He laughed, and Alex’s heart had never felt so full.
“Yeah, I couldn’t stand to see you go a New Year’s Eve without one after you said that earlier." he said.
Another set of fireworks went off in front of them.
His arm tightened around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him, and he placed a kiss on her forehead.
“Yeah, I think 2010 is going to be good.” he said after a moment, pulling her fully into his arms and resting his head on top of her own. She squeezed her arms around his waist and smiled.
“Me too.”