Back to Normal

Summary: Life goes on after their adventure in Puerto Rico, but as the Russo kids find out, even adventures have consequences. Especially when parents find out about them.

A/N: I always like writing aftermaths, but I especially wanted to do this one since events in this movie should definitely have consequences.

Only in this family, Theresa thought as she shook her head. She'd been doing a laundry load of clothes still left over from their vacation to Puerto Rico, when she'd stumbled across a folded piece of paper in her oldest son's jeans pocket. It had the title of Elemental Spells for the Wizard Competition, which was underlined, and a few spells were listed.

The paper in her hand, she went back into the main living area from dropping a pile of clothes off in Justin's room. He hadn't been there, since it was a Saturday and the kids were out with their respective friends, so she wanted to put it on the kitchen counter as a reminder to give it to him when he got back.

Most moms found crumpled dollar bills and leftover gum wrappers in their kids' pockets. She found a list of spells.

It really never ceased to amaze her. She had grown up as a completely average mortal who was taught that magic didn't exist. When she met Jerry, it changed her whole world…literally.

The thought put a small smile on her face as she placed the paper on the counter. Jerry was in the kitchen to get a glass of soda in preparation for the Mets game that would be on soon.

"Hey, honey, did we run out of root beer?" Jerry asked, his head in the fridge. He glanced over his shoulder at her, then paused when he caught her putting down the paper. "Who's that for?"

About to go back to folding the remaining laundry on the dinning room table, Theresa paused and turned towards him. "Typical Justin. I found a list of spells in his jeans."

"What for? We haven't had a lesson since we got back," Jerry asked. Curious, he forgot about the soda and closed the fridge door.

Theresa shrugged as she went back to the laundry pile. "I don't know. It was a list of 'Elemental Spells for the Wizard Competition'," she explained with the use of air quotes around the list's title. She hadn't paid any attention to it, of course. She'd figured it was something for the kids' magic lesson. Like Jerry said, they hadn't had one since they got back, but she knew Justin couldn't go long without studying.

"It was what?"

Surprised by her husband's shout, Theresa jumped. "Why? What does that mean?"

"Oh, this is bad…" Jerry said as he grabbed the paper and glanced at it, then groaned when he saw she was right. "Elemental spells are spells that only use earth, air, fire, and water. They're the only spells allowed in the wizard competition. But wizards in training aren't supposed to know about that aspect of the competition until it starts. It…" He paused. "It would be like knowing the questions on a final exam beforehand. It's not a true test of ability."

Jerry sighed and put a hand to his forehead. "How could he know about this?"

"I have no…" Theresa began, then hesitated. Maybe she did have an idea, to some extent. It probably had to do with the odd turn their vacation had taken.

While thrilled about Alex's sudden change of attitude halfway through the trip, both she and Jerry had privately talked about what could have caused this. There was that mystery. Then of course, they'd been totally bewildered that one day when the kids had treated them like they'd been separated for months.

Ever since then, Alex, Justin and Max had been acting like best friends, not an insult among them unless it was meant as a joke. This had also been confusing.

Not to mention the…weird feeling she'd been getting ever since the day Alex changed her attitude. Of course she was thrilled that her daughter was finally appreciating her family. But there was that underlying, nagging presence in Theresa's gut, insisting that something else had changed, something big.

It was like an ever-present sense of déjà vu. She'd experienced it a few times before when the kids had caused a major disturbance in reality, like when that genie's spell made her believe that Justin wasn't her son.

"However he knows," Theresa said. "It has to be related to their strange behavior. I'm really suspecting that something happened that we don't know about."

Jerry nodded in agreement. "Definitely. I'm just worried. If Professor Crumbs finds out about this…Justin could be disqualified from the competition, on penalty of cheating."

"Justin would never cheat," Theresa argued. While she didn't know most wizard laws, she did know her son. "He would never do anything that could break the rules. On top of that, he's so honest.

Remember that time he told his teacher that one of his test answers was marked correct when it should have been wrong?"

"Trust me, I know. There has to be an explanation for this," Jerry assured her. "But I can't help wondering what would happen if there isn't."

Upset for her husband, Theresa crossed the room and gave him a comforting hug. "Don't worry. We'll hold a family meeting tonight and demand some answers."

"Alex, there you are!" Jerry exclaimed when his daughter came home for dinner. He'd wanted to call them all and make them come home as soon as he discovered the list. But Theresa had insisted that the kids would be home soon enough, and they could wait. Jerry had wanted to argue on it, try to make her understand how serious this was, but he was too consumed with their newfound problems to start what would surely become a fight.

Unfortunately, as Justin and Max were already seated on the living room couch waiting, Jerry was just about to burst with anticipation of his daughter's arrival. He wanted to clear this whole matter up so he could stop panicking.

Alex immediately froze and went on the defense. "I didn't do it!"

About to assure her she was safe, he was stopped when Theresa put a hand on his shoulder and asked, "Didn't do what, Alex?"

"You're asking me? Oh, okay, false alarm," Alex said with relief, then went to sit next to her brothers.

Theresa snapped her fingers in disappointment. "Shoot, I thought that would work."

"Alex wouldn't fall for that old trick," Jerry said. "Might want to try it on Max, though."

Curious, Justin called, "Okay, she's here! Can we start this meeting already?"

"Absolutely," Jerry said, just as eager as his son apparently was, even more. Theresa followed him to stand in front of the television, and he held up the piece of paper so all three could clearly see what was written on it. "Justin, can you explain this?"

Shocked, Justin's eyes widened and his jaw dropped, completely victim of the deer-caught-in-headlights syndrome.

Jerry did not take it as a good sign.

"W-where…" Justin sputtered through deep breaths. "D-did y-you get that?"

Her son's reaction had caused Theresa to wrinkle her brow in concern as well. "I found it in your jeans pocket when I was doing laundry."

"Justin!" Alex exclaimed and swatted her older brother's shoulder. "How could you not check your jeans pockets? Heck, I learned that lesson when I was nine and left a failed quiz in there."

While his siblings began to panic, Max seemed to be clueless to the situation…which, Jerry knew, was typical. Jerry didn't take it as an indication of whether his youngest son knew or not, because Max could be in on his siblings' secret, but simply not figure out what the list meant in relation.

But he'd deal with figuring out who knew what later. Right then, he needed an explanation for this trouble-causing list. "Justin," Jerry said in such a grave tone that all three kids gave him their attention. "I need to know why you made this list."

Justin and Alex traded glances, clearly wondering if it would be best to tell the truth, or come up with a lie on the spot. Ashamed, Justin lowered his eyes and began, "I'm sorry, I know we should've told you…"

"…that one of Justin's friends from Wiztech stuffed the list in his pocket when he wasn't looking!" Alex blurted. When she realized that she wouldn't know if that had actually happened, she stammered, "Uh, I mean, that's probably what happened. Right Justin?"

It was a weak attempt, and she knew it, judging from the grimace on her face. "I'm actually a little disappointed, Alex. You usually come up with a better cover," Jerry replied, annoyed.

Alex shrugged. "I was on the spot. Give me a minute."

His eyes wide with sudden realization, Max snapped his fingers. "Oh, I get it! Justin was probably writing down those spells to memorize them!" Oblivious to the evil looks his siblings were giving him, Max continued, "Yeah, they told me all about how they had to compete in the wizard competition to reverse Alex's spell that caused you and Mom to never meet."

Jerry dropped the paper, and ignored it when it sailed to the floor. "What…how the…what the…" he sputtered, then pointed at his daughter. "Alex!"

"It was an accident! I just happened to be holding the family wand at the time!" Alex argued, then paused when she noticed that she'd let slip information that would probably get her in bigger trouble. "Oh, shoot."

Overwhelmed, Theresa held up her hands. "Wait, you cast a spell that caused your father and I to have never met? Come on, I think I'd know…" She stopped, understanding in her eyes. "Jerry...they're right. That's why I've been feeling so weird lately. I knew something happened!"

Meanwhile, Jerry was slowly processing the information, numb from shock. That would have been a powerful spell that Alex cast, and it would've taken a miracle to reverse it. But before he got to that, he had to know something. "Why did you do it, Alex?"

There was a tense silence, while Alex searched for the right answer. "I…I'm sorry for what I did, it wasn't my proudest moment," she confessed. "But…I was mad, okay? I really wanted to go to the party, and Mom and I hadn't been getting along. She'd been going on non-stop about when you two met, so when I snapped, with the wand in my hand…that was the first thing that came to mind."

Jerry nodded. He'd been expecting as much. A spell so powerful like that, even with the titanium wand, would have required an emotional boost from the caster.

He didn't know how to react, exactly. Of course, he was furious with Alex for stealing the family wand in the first place. That was strong magic, too much for Alex, as she found out. But on the other hand, he could see that she'd clearly learned her lesson. He had a feeling she wouldn't go near the family wand again, unless the day came that she won the wizard competition and it became hers.

"Look, Alex, we'll deal with your punishment later," Jerry snapped, so harshly that Alex winced. Even if she did learn a lesson, she was still in more trouble than she'd ever been before, and that was saying something. "How did you three reverse the spell?"

Uncomfortable about having to retell the ordeal, Justin managed to reply, "At first, we tried to get the Stone of Dreams…"

"You what?" Jerry exclaimed.

Theresa gave her husband a bewildered glance. "Stone of Dreams? What's that?"

"A magical stone that grants a wizard or mortal one wish. It can be anything, no matter what the wizard laws are at the moment, or the magical limitations of the wish maker," Jerry explained. "It's hidden in a cave in Puerto Rico. Getting it entails a dangerous journey. Wizards have died trying." He then paused and glared at them. "I can't believe you three would be so reckless and risk your lives like that!"

"We had to! We needed to get you back...not to mention, you know, the fact that we would've disappeared if we didn't," Alex retorted.

Max tentatively raised a hand. "And I didn't even go! I stayed back at the resort trying to get alternate you and Mom back together. Man, Dad, you were so different before you met Mom. I mean, I turned this girl you liked into a dog and you didn't yell or anything!"

"Jerry!" Theresa admonished - probably both for not reprimanding Max, and for liking another woman.

"Hey, I was under a spell, you can't be mad at me," Jerry argued. He then turned back to Justin. "Wait, so how did searching for the Stone of Dreams lead to you three having the Wizard Competition?"

"Actually, it was just me and Alex," Justin answered. "Max had already been blown away by this tornado thing because of the spell, which was erasing our memories."

"My poor Maxi!" Theresa exclaimed, and gave her youngest a tight hug.

Max returned the hug, but assured her, "It's okay. I came back after they finished the competition and Alex wished on the Stone of Dreams."

A hand to her aching forehead, Theresa got up, only to fall into the club chair. "Alright, that's it. I'm done trying to keep up. Jerry, you figure it out and tell me who we have to punish afterward."

Jerry didn't blame her. The kids already said so much, and yet he was still very confused. From what he could gather, his kids both found the Stone of Dreams, and competed for their powers in order to reverse the spell...both very difficult tasks. Even if his kids were in major trouble, he had to respect their power as wizards, which he had begun to suspect was more than the average young wizards'. Even full wizards had tried to get the Stone but hadn't succeeded.

"Okay, let's start from the beginning here," Jerry began slowly. "When Alex first cast the spell that altered reality, you..."

He knew it was wrong. He knew keeping the secret was wrong. But she...got to him. She twisted everything and totally confused him. She knew what buttons to push. Her tactics were especially effective since he was so...raw, insecure.

He hadn't stood a chance. He wanted to report what happened to their parents, then Professor Crumbs, if necessary. But she'd kept insisting that if they just told Max about the competition twist, everything would be fair. Because Justin still hurt from losing, he let himself believe her.

In the upstairs hallway, Justin glared at his sister, who was leaning on her room's doorway, as usual oblivious to the gravity of the situation. They were waiting until their parents called them down to tell them their punishment, after they'd been sent upstairs once they went through the whole story. "You're taking the fall for this," he seethed. "I wouldn't have kept this secret if..."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm the one who messed everything up, it was all my fault, blah, blah, blah," Alex drawled, her gaze on the nails she was filing with the file in her other hand. "Everything's back to normal, isn't it? Me messing up, getting everyone else in trouble..."

That made Justin forget his anger, if just for a brief moment. There was something...different in her voice. While usually nonchalant, she didn't have that same fighting spirit she had when she was in trouble. It was as if she'd resigned herself to the fact that she was facing intense punishment.

Not typical Alex behavior, Justin knew. His sister was more the type to keep on fighting.

"Hey...are you okay?" Justin asked. While she had seemed to be back to her usual self, if a little nicer to her family, he'd noticed she'd been distant as well. She'd surprise their parents with an unexpected hug or exclamation of "I love you so much!", then, when attention was off her, she'd have a blank, unfamiliar look on her face.

The same look was on her face now, and Justin suddenly knew what it was. It was guilt. Real, heart-wrenching guilt.

No wonder he hadn't recognized it in her. She never felt guilt.

Justin was too considerate to express it, but he was a little smug inside. She was finally realizing that her actions had consequences. "It's okay to feel guilty, Alex. It would actually be normal for most people to experience that after what you did."

"Thanks for making me feel better!" Alex suddenly snapped as she hit him with the nail file. "I don't like this to begin with! I take pride in not having a conscience! I spend years squashing it down, and then all of a sudden it just comes back out again, like all my work did nothing!"

Startled, Justin took a step back. He should've known better than to expect that she would just burst into tears and tell him how what she'd done was eating her up inside. "Alex, you caused our parents to have never met, and made us almost cease to exist. Like I said, it's okay to feel guilt, it's what's supposed to happen."

There was a minute's silence, then she let out a deep breath. "But is it supposed to hurt this much? Did I...did I ignore my conscience for so long, that now it's not working right? Because this can't be what I'm supposed to be feeling. It's like I've been punched in the stomach, hard, and it's all the time!"

"Yup, that's guilt," Justin assured her. Though she knew she wouldn't like it, he wrapped her in a brotherly, comforting hug.

What surprised him the most was that she actually did start to cry. She choked on her words when she eventually spoke. "Just...tell me it'll stop. Tell me it'll stop soon."

"I can't guarantee when," Justin replied. "But it will. After you apologize to Mom and Dad maybe a million or so times."

Alex instantly snapped from depressed to disgusted, and jumped away from him. "What? Are you serious? But I said it already!"

"But you have to let them know just how sorry you are, otherwise it doesn't work," Justin insisted, a smirk on his face. He could see that old fire return to her already.

Her arms crossed, Alex stubbornly retorted, "I don't do 'begging for forgiveness,' if that's what you're getting at."

Justin gave a careless shrug. "Fine, then feel guilty forever."

"Justin, Alex! Get down here!"

Their father's voice easily traveled up the stairs, and the two decided it was best not to keep him waiting. Justin led the way to the living room area, where his parents were sitting on the couch. They looked like they'd had an intense discussion. His mother had her head in her hands, probably to nurse a headache. Chances were, his dad had explained everything to her, including how much trouble they'd gotten themselves into.

That seemed to be the case when she stood up to face them, her arms crossed. "Because this is a magic thing, I'm going to go upstairs and let your father handle this. But just know, that I am very disappointed that you tried to keep all of this from us. I don't care who did what exactly, so don't even try to start blaming each other. It won't matter, because whatever comes out of this discussion with your father, you will both be grounded for a very long time, I assure you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go upstairs, take a long bath, and try to remember what it was like when I was under the spell and didn't think I had children."

With that, she marched past them and up the stairs.

When her footsteps faded, Justin finally allowed himself to breathe, and he could tell his sister was doing the same. Their mother was scary when she was mad.

Even his father breathed a little sigh of relief, as Theresa's temper often unnerved him as well. He quickly got over it and pointed to the couch. "Sit. Both of you." Once they silently complied, he explained, "So, I contacted Professor Crumbs. He, of course, was aware of what happened, and the test has already been changed."

"Changed?" Justin panicked. While he knew it was wrong to have an upper hand, he had to admit that, no matter how much he tried to blame Alex, he did like knowing exactly what to study. Which should've been the first clue that keeping the secret was wrong.

"Yes, changed," Jerry said. "So all three of you are back to square one. You're very lucky he's been so accommodating. He could've just taken the Russo family's powers as punishment and been done with all of you. But since Justin is, and I quote, 'the most promising young wizard in years,' he didn't have the heart to do it."

Justin didn't know how to respond to that. It was incredibly flattering, but he couldn't exactly start smiling like a happy idiot as he wanted. His father wouldn't appreciate it, surely. So he settled for forced modesty. "O-oh, wow," he managed.

"So Justin's nerdiness saves the day once again," Alex deadpanned, but anyone could see that she was on the verge of turning into a green-eyed monster. "How shocking."

Irritated by her attitude, Jerry glared at her. "You should be grateful that you still get to keep your powers more than anyone else. Given what you managed to do with the titanium wand, Crumbs was seriously considering taking your powers, so that there would be no chance anything like that could happen again."

"Why didn't he then?" Alex asked, more out of curiosity than sarcasm. Justin had a feeling that her guilt was creeping up again, and making her question if she actually did deserve to keep her powers.

Jerry, of course, did interpret it as sarcasm, and retorted, "Because I persuaded him not to. I don't know why I bothered, though. After what you did, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to have powers. But I did anyway, because I stupidly assumed that maybe you'd learned a lesson from all of this." Disappointed, he shook his head, then turned to his son. "Justin, go upstairs. I'll tell you your punishment later. But I want to talk to your sister first, so I can maybe learn what was going through her head when she went to use the family wand without permission."

Since he knew how torn up Alex actually was inside, Justin gave her a nervous glance. She nodded discretely, which he took as an assurance that she was going to use his advice and tell their father how sorry she was. That in mind, he reassuringly patted her shoulder, then looked at his father. "Dad? Can you do me a favor?"

Amazed that Justin would actually ask that in this situation, Jerry gestured for him to go ahead.

"Please, just...go easy on her," Justin said. He could feel both his father and sister's bewildered stares on his back as he went up the stairs.

He'd just defended his sister, who was going to try and defend yet another magical mishap to their father. Maybe everything was back to normal.