Gigi moved to the door without taking her eyes from Justin's, laid her hand flat against it and pushed until the latch clicked into place. Eyes still on his, she moved her hand down to the doorknob, then locked the door, licking her lips as she did.

A thrill ran through Justin at that, but he took his eyes from her with an effort. "I didn't come here to fight you, Mason," he said then, looking at the other boy. "I'm here to tell you that your girlfriend, my sister, isn't happy about you being here. Now, if you want to be -"

"If you want everyone to know how whipped you are by your girlfriend," Gigi put in with malicious glee, "then go ahead and leave, and I'll make sure everyone knows."

Justin turned his head slowly back toward Gigi, considering as he did. Need to get her out of this. And there's only one thing I have to use on her right now - the love potion. "Gigi, come here," he said aloud.

She frowned at him, visibly torn between an impulse to obey, and her need to mess with Alex via Mason. Justin could move over to her, but would that be conceding power to her? And, of course, every moment he spent struggling with Gigi was another moment that Alex was stewing downstairs, and Justin knew quite well that patience was not his sister's strong suit. A couple more minutes, and she'll be doing something else. I need -

Justin laughed then, suddenly, and both Gigi and Mason looked puzzled as he lifted one foot from the floor and said, "Geilsjay Timesday." Immediately, everything froze around him, and Justin lifted his foot high, took hold of his ankle with one hand, then leaned against the wall with the other.

Thus assured that he wouldn't put his foot down quickly, Justin took a minute to think. All right. Mason's got the love potion in him, so, as unsettling as the thought is, he's in love with me right now. That means he's going to want to stay near me, so he's going to keep fighting against leaving if I stay. On the other hand, though, Justin thought his best bet to keep Gigi from telling would be to spend some time here with her and persuade her not to tell.

Of course, part of that may be the love potion talking too. But you know what? At this point, I'm not even sure I care. Okay. I think I've got my plan. Here goes.

Taking out his cell phone, Justin began to type a text to Alex, thinking as he did of how he was going to need to arrange things.

Three minutes later - or what seemed like it to him - Justin hopped back into position, put away his wand, and moved into a position as close as he could remember to how where he'd been and how he'd been standing when he'd stopped time. He held his phone in the hand where he'd had his wand, then set his foot down, looking down at it.

"What did you just say?" Gigi asked immediately, shaking her head a little at him. Justin pocketed the phone and looked back up at her.

"I said, 'good time for a text, eh?'" he offered, and while Gigi looked doubtful at that, he moved closer to her before she had a chance to say more, then quietly said, "Look. Everyone here saw you come upstairs with me." Tilting his head toward the door, he continued. "I'm willing to bet there's a dozen people on the other side of that door right now, including your wannabees, wondering just what we're doing in here with the door locked."

Gigi shot a glance toward the door, and Justin felt sorry for her as he saw the expression on her face, but continued regardless. "Now, we can come up with a story that people might buy about how you had to come up here to keep Mason and I from fighting. Or, you can tell people that story you wanted to tell about Mason being whipped, and I'll just come up with my own story about what the three of us were doing up here." He shrugged a little, then smiled, said, "And I really don't think you'll like my story."

There was a pause as the two of them looked at each other, and then Gigi narrowed her eyes. "You wouldn't."

"Care to bet on that?" Justin said, giving her the nastiest smile he could manage. "Alex and I may not always get along, but she's family. I watch out for her."

Gigi and Justin stared at each other for another few seconds, Justin trying to fight to keep from swallowing. I shouldn't have done it this way. She's not going to go for it. Dammit... His fingers twitched a little, and he inched his hand toward his wand, keeping his eyes on Gigi's... and then she nodded suddenly, just one quick nod.

"All right. We'll do it that way." She looked around for Mason, and Justin feigned doing so as well, then said, "Well, he must've taken my advice while we were having out little staring competition, and left."

"Well, in that case," Gigi started, and Justin felt his heart sink as she smiled the same smile she always made when she was pulling something on Alex - "I can do this," she finished, and Justin's eyes went wide as she stepped to him and stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him.

"There you are!" Alex stood up from the couch in the Lair, frowning at Justin. "What took you so long?"

"I couldn't exactly just teleport right out, Alex. I needed to smooth things over with Gigi, and -"

"What?" Alex shook her head quickly, her hair bouncing with it. "Smooth things over? Why?"

"Oh, let me see…." Justin looked up toward the ceiling, stroking his chin. "Because someone had just disappeared from her room, and I had to distract her from that? Because I felt some obligation for getting her hit with the love potion?"

Alex opened her mouth to protest again, but Justin waved both hands at her, crossing his arms. "No. No more about that. I got your boyfriend out of there, like I said I was going to, right?"

"Right, but -"

"No 'but's. I did my end of things, and now it's time for you to pay the piper. You're getting punished."

"Yeah?" Alex crossed her arms and gave Justin a skeptical look. "You already said I could have Mason over. Are you going back on that?"

"No," Justin said, shaking his head. "I've got something else in mind." He grinned slightly, said, "A punishment that Mom and Dad can't just revoke as soon as they get back."

Still looking skeptical, Alex retorted, "Yeah? What? Are you going to spank me or something like that?"

"Oh, after this is over, you'll wish I'd spanked you," Justin said, his grin growing. He shook his head slowly, then said, "No. I had to make some promises in order to get things smoothed over. So, tomorrow, you and Mason get to go on a double date with me and Gigi. Dinner and movie."

Alex's eyes went wide with horror, and she shook her head quickly, said, "No. No. We're not going to -"

Folding his arms with finality, Justin replied, "Oh, you will. You see, I already asked Mason about it, and since he's still crushing on me from the love potion right now, he was just thrilled about the idea."

For a moment, Alex stared at Justin in horror, then opened her mouth again, and Justin shook his head again, said, "No. Dutch. I'm not paying for you two."

"You… you…." Alex shook her head again, stomped her foot with an angry cry, then stormed out of the Lair. For his part, Justin made a satisfied smile, then went over to one wall and muttered to himself, "And just to make sure no one wiggles out of their punishment…."

He opened the wizard fusebox, pulled out the fuses, then cocked his head to listen for the scream. When it came, he sighed happily.

Author's Note: … and that's a wrap! Sorry it took me a while to get back to this, but I decided to go ahead and plow through to the end, since it had been a while.