„Anton?"

Oh no, I hadn't heard that. I had definitely not heard that.

To better not hear anything, I rolled over in my cave of blankets and piled more covers over my head. Somehow, I usually ended up sleeping in some kind of fort by the time morning neared, because it brought with it the threat of having to leave my bed. One had to take up arms against that threat. I, for one, fought a constant battle against the moment that invariably came each and every morning, when I had to part company with my blankets. I had made it a science to postpone the moment for as many minutes as I possibly could every day.

"Anton! Get your beautiful lazy butt out of bed! We'll be late!"

Unfortunately for me and the state of the sleep-in war, my mother had a very pervasive voice. She also possessed the quite unique talent of sounding unreservedly cheerful and darkly menacing in equal measure, which never failed to invoke an image of her chasing me out of bed with a stake in one hand and a doughnut in the other. It made staying in bed an act of domestic resistance, while also abbreviating said act of resistance by a considerable amount of time.

I reluctantly opened my eyes and braced myself for the unbearable brightness of what would qualify as dim semi-darkness in anyone but a teenager's view. The door to my room was open, and I could see my parents silhouetted against the light spilling from the bathroom. They were standing very close together and being suspiciously silent –kissing, that meant.

Something stirred within me. Some memory of wanting to bath in the glow of these kisses more often. This was an embarrassingly sentimental thought for a sixteen-year-old and I would never admit to having it, but the truth was that I had never cringed at my parents' kissing the way other teenagers did – I had just always been glad that they were so much in love.

I swung my feet on the floor, and paused briefly. There was suddenly the funny feeling that I had forgotten something. Unexpectedly, an overwhelming feeling of thankfulness washed over me, of how lucky I was to have my parents, both happy and in love and healthy and caring. There was a little voice in my head – it said: 'We saved them.' I couldn't exactly make sense of that – I had no idea who had saved whom – but neither did it strike me that there was anything wrong with that sentence.

A sigh escaped me, the sole utterance of my deep regret that it was the last day of the holidays – I would have to say goodbye to lying in now. My family and Ava's would have a little get-together before Ava I were off for the academy after the long summer holidays. It would be the first time we'd leave without Lily, who had graduated and would be going to college now.

With a last lingering thought about something that had been put right – I'm sure that I used to remember what – I left my room for the bathroom, newly vacated now my parents had taken their morning kissing ritual to somewhere else.

A few minutes later, I went to join them in our tiny cluttered kitchen, where I thoughtfully regarded my mom as she simultaneously juggled three mugs and a coffee pot and, for some reason, rinsed a couple of stakes in the kitchen sink.

"Mom – did you just comment on my butt?"

"Anything to wake you up, honey," she chimed, and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and a plate full of doughnuts. "Good work on the rising. Now let's work on the shining part."

"Sure, Mom," I said. "Just about to shine."

.

.

- Lily-

Things were definitely weird around here. I could have sworn that just minutes ago, I had faced a very angry and very worried Dimitri, who had lost his son and didn't know where to find him, and I had the distinct impression that he had been right in asking me where he was, because I did know all about it. I also had the unpleasant suspicion that maybe I hadn't been all that innocent in Dimitri's losing track of his son's whereabouts.

This had all either been a really vivid dream, or something weird was going on.

One piece of evidence suggesting it had been a dream was that I was currently sitting on my own bed in my own room, as opposed to standing in the open doorway of my mom's study. A piece of evidence suggesting it had to be more than a dream was the fact that I had no recollection of getting up and dressing this morning.

As I sat on the bed pondering, two very different versions of the past few weeks enfolded in my mind, gradually stretching into two very different versions of my whole life. What was slightly disquieting was the suspicion that I had been going mad in one of those versions. Well, actually, the whole business of recalling two versions of one's past is kind of disquieting, but I determinedly kept my calm, because I knew I was a spirit user, and a spirit user always had to check twice before conceding mental breakdown.

I decided to first determine which of the two versions of the past I was currently living in, by the simple expedient of verifying whether Ava existed – or not.

That part was easily solved as I ran into her, clad in her pajamas and towel in hand on the way to the bathroom.

"Ava?"

"Morning, Lil."

"Can I talk to you for a second?"

"Having second thoughts about letting us go to school all alone?"

"Um, no…" I steered her back into her room and sat her down on her bed. "Look, don't say I'm crazy, but… what have you been up to in the last few weeks?"

She did look at me as if she thought I was crazy. "What, do you think I've been up to something fishy?"

"In a way… but I'm not accusing you of anything. I just want to know."

"Lily, you know what I've been up to. You've been there for most of the time, at least when you weren't off doing who knows what with your boyfriend."

Ex-boyfriend and hopefully soon-to-be-again boyfriend, I mentally corrected.

Even while I was thinking this, a smile broke out on my face, and I needed a moment to figure out why I was smiling – I was smiling because I seemed to have narrowly escaped life as a half-orphan.

Looking back over my past was like looking at one of these pictures of optical illusions: look at it one way, and you see a vase. Squint and it becomes two faces in profile. I knew that I had grown up with my mom, my dad and my little sister, living in the palace as part of my mom's job as the Moroi queen. Yet I could also recall having sent said sister back into the past to change the fact that my dad and Ava's best friend's mom had died and not seen us grown up.

Wait, was that some weird hallucination and was I still going mad?

At this point I realized that Ava was studying me intently, and that I still had that involuntary smile on my face.

"Never mind," I said quickly, before she could make a remark. "Go have your shower."

Could it be true? Had I really sent Ava and Anton into the past, and had they changed the version of our lives that didn't look so bright, so that the second one – the much brighter one – came true? Had she changed my life, but I could still remember it as it had been?

The next station in figuring out this puzzle: my mom, formidable spirit user, queen of a secret empire and mom of the year all rolled into one.

She was brewing coffee in the kitchen, and another time I had confronted her in the kitchen briefly flashed through my mind. Shaking my head to get rid of the overlapping images, I realized Mom was looking a little out of it, too. Also, she had put the ground coffee into the jug for the milk and was running the machine on water only.

"Morning, sweetheart," she said absently.

"Hi Mom."

I watched her for a moment. Then I decided that watching would get me nowhere.

"Mom… At the risk of you handing me over to the shrinks, but I have to voice a subtly mental suspicion here…" Well…how was I to phrase this? "I was wondering… you wouldn't happen to currently be feeling slightly confused about the state of the world and wondering if you're remembering a very realistic dream or being crazy?"

She pierced me with an uncomfortably intense gaze, and I was almost sure I had a straightjacket waiting for me in my very near future. Then she said: "Honey – that is an uncannily accurate description of my state of mind."

Yay! Not going crazy, then! "That makes two of us," I said, not quite able to keep the relief out of my voice.

"Does it," she murmured.

"What do you remember?"

Her gaze turned dreamy. "Ava," she said simply.

"Let me clarify – do you mean present pain-in-the-ass kid Ava, or, I don't know, let's say, maybe fifteen year old Ava but twenty years ago?"

Her dreamy gaze suddenly switched back to razor sharp. "You know an awful lot about what's going on in my head, Lily. How come you're so proficient about my thoughts and memories?"

I sat down on the kitchen table, unable once again to prevent a little smile from crossing my face. The other life was hazy, but I knew enough to be glad things had turned out the way they had.

"Well, I might have sent Ava into the past to… um…" My instinct told me that it would not be very wise to tell Mom what we had really stopped from happening, if she didn't remember that bit. "To do a certain errant."

"You sent your sister into the past?" echoed Mom. Her tone was much the same as the one she used to scold me for being mouthy to a teacher or something.

"I'm not really sure, Mom, seeing as Ava doesn't remember anything, did it really happen?" She eyed me sternly, so I quickly added: "I'm sure there's no solid ground for you to be cross with me or anything."

"Well, whatever you wanted to achieve, I think you did," Mom said. Her voice turned all soft all of a sudden as she dropped into a chair opposite me. "Because I'm pretty sure you and I are the only ones who know that something was ever amiss and isn't anymore."

"Because we're spirit users?"

"I guess."

"Mom, do you – remember why Ava was there… in the past?"

"No… I think I never knew exactly what made Ava and Anton come to us in the past. It's not as clear as the other, the real memories are. They are more … glimpses… of memories of another world where I met my younger daughter long before she was born."

She took my hands in hers. "Lily… I can't be cross with you. This goes way over my head, but I trust you. If you sent them, then I know that you must have had to do so."

Well.

Wasn't that something.

My mom and I shared memories of a past that had never happened, because we were both spirit users and had been involved in it. Not even Mom knew that Dad had died… I was alone with that knowledge.

She and I sure had a lot more to talk about and surely would. But evidently, that time was not now, because at this point, my dad and Ava came in, both fresh out of bed and shower and already on each other's cases.

"But Dad, I'm sure I'd have lots to contribute, I could do demonstrations with you, and I could show water user stuff that you can't show, because you're a fire user…"

"Oh, I'm sure you could, and then we'd be swiping the floor for hours after class…"

They ambled through the door basically joined at the hip. Dad had this way of tucking Ava under his arm that fitted her into his side and made them walk together like Siamese twins. Their dispute concerned the usual topic: Ava wanted to go with him to his classes, because she suspected him of teaching his more advanced students things he hadn't taught her yet.

"No we wouldn't, you could just evaporate the water away!"

"Ava, don't give your dad any ideas," Mom scolded her. Sometimes, you had to stop these two, before they took turns flooding and burning the palace.

"That's nice, Liss," Dad countered, icy-blue eyes twinkling. "I've been teaching her my tricks for all her live and now she's not allowed to return the favor?"

He went to kiss her, and his eyes fell on the milk jug full of ground coffee.

"May I ask why we're having hot water for breakfast?" Dad asked, raising an eyebrow. Mom made an excuse, and Ava went back to pleading with Dad, and I just sat there enjoying their teasing. My family was whole and happy and it couldn't be better.

.

.

- Anton-

"Make sure you stay out of trouble this year, Anton. Not like last year, when I got letters every other month saying you've been sneaking around after hours. You're going to give Stan a heart attack, and he's too old for that now, hear me?"

"Mom – I have heard stories about your time at school – and I'm not taking any advice from you, believe me."

Dad chuckled softly, and Mom seemed unable to decide between scolding me and laughing with Dad. She resorted to a dignified, "Well, times have changed, haven't they," to which I'm almost sure I could hear Dad mutter something like "Not really..."

"I'm just saying," Mom continued, "Now that Lily can no longer look after you…"

I had to suppress a loud snort at that. Lily look after us? If it wasn't for Lily teaming up with Ava to scheme illicit activities, I would never have been caught being out after hours at all, for I never would have been out after hours. I wasn't the one to suggest any rule breaking – I was, as both Dragomir sisters delighted in reminding me, a god damn stickler for the rules. Lily had once suggested that we sneak out after hours, so that she could attempt using spirit to send Ava and me back into the past, so we could stop ourselves from being caught out after hours the previous time!

I was saved from having to disappoint Mom by elucidating her about my true law-abiding nature when we were intercepted by Lily herself, who looked oddly cheerful – I hoped that was not because she was finally rid of us – and who also promptly took over telling Mom all the things Ava and I would probably be up to now that she was no longer at school with us.

We met Ava and her parents upstairs in their big palace suites. It had gotten late, as usual, and we only had about half an hour before we needed to be off to catch our plane back to the academy.

"Rose, Dimitri, Anton!" Lissa, Ava's Mom, exclaimed as we entered. She started to hug everyone and included her daughters who probably had been hugged a million times today already.

We had a fun half hour because my mom and Ava's dad liked bickering so much and Ava, Lily and I had made it a sport to set them against each other. We successfully managed to have them argue about whether or not they liked the teacher who had taught spirit during their time at school (Christian said yes; Mom said no) before they realized that there had never been a spirit teacher during their academy years. Before we knew it, it was time to leave. Guardians would take us to the airport, because if our parents would come, security would be immense and we would never be able to leave.

"See you Thanksgiving!"

"Be good and study!"

"Do remember not to cause any heart attacks, Anton!"

"Do try not to give old Hans a heart attack, Mom!"

"Don't argue Rose's head off, Dad!"

"Oh, as if he could!"

"We'll miss you all!"

I was ushered into the car along with Ava, and under many gleeful have-fun-at-school comments from Lily. I was leaning out of the window to wave to Mom and Dad, and tried to catch a last glimpse of our parents – Christian was saying something to Mom, whereupon she looked at him as if he'd suggested a nationwide ban on doughnuts. Maybe he had. Then they were out of sight, and I turned back to Ava.

"I'm afraid it's going to be a calm year," she said. "Without Lily stirring up trouble wherever we go."

"I might hope for that," I replied. "If I wasn't so sure you won't let that happen."

"I'll be way more difficult with only you as a reluctant accomplice. I almost wish I'd taken Lily up on her offer to send us into some more interesting part of the past."

"We're not even sure she'd actually be able to do that."

"Maybe she could. Imagine witnessing the time Mom became queen and your Mom was accused of murder and had to prove she was innocent and was shot by my dad's aunt."

"Imagine witnessing our parents go to school!"

"Or escaping from school."

"Or seeing Declan as a baby!"

"Or seeing your dad as a Strigoi. That would be scary."

"Or being there the time Aunt Jill was abducted. Who knows, maybe we could have helped! Changed something!"

"But everything went well, Anton. Whatever would you have wanted to change?"

I pondered this question a moment, but then had to conclude: "Nothing. I wouldn't change anything."

The End.

You have just read the very last chapter of my story Turn Back Time. I realize now that maybe I should have warned you in advance that there weren't many pages left… Though I think the story development already told you that it was coming to an end.

If you stayed with this story from beginning to end, then I hope that maybe you feel a little bit like the way you feel when finishing a good book – just a tiny little bit. I hope that I was able to give you a little piece of the VA universe in the way I always look for continuation of the series – I definitely enjoyed writing this story, and I'm going to miss posting a new chapter every Sunday.

If you ever left a review, I want to thank you for each and every one of them, because they all made me hop up and down in front of my computer with joy that someone in this world found my story worth the time and effort to drop me a line, or sometimes even quite a few lines. You would make me very happy by giving me one last final review!

I wish you many more good fanfiction experiences – good ideas to the writers amongst you, and good stories to the readers!

Your LUNAtic