Jerry looked at the kids and got... well, less than rapt attention from his audience. The ever-dutiful Justin was sitting quietly, waiting with his hands folded in his lap, and Tutor was similarly attentive. Alex and Max, however, were both distracted: Alex by her - no, actually, that was Justin's - phone, and Max by a loose thread where the cuffs of his jeans were fraying.

Still, though, no one was trying to leave the room, or talking, so by the (low) standards that Jerry had learned to expect in the course of teaching his children wizardry, this was good. Smiling a little, he sat back in his chair and started.

"Kids, I know you've heard this story from Theresa before, but I've never told you my side of it. And part of that's because I don't like to talk about myself -"

Alex made a cough that sounded suspiciously like 'Yeah, right,' and Jerry gave her a quick scowl and went on, a little more loudly. " - nearly as much as your mother does. But another part of it is, well... a bit embarrassing."

That caught Alex's attention, and she looked up from Justin's phone, then put it into her purse, leaning over against him as she did. Unconsciously, Justin slid his arm around Alex, and she laid her head against his shoulder.

"So, anyway... in May of 1991, I was a young wizard with time on his hands. We hadn't had the family competition yet, but everyone knew how that was going to turn out - I was sure that Megan wasn't going to beat me, and Kelbo certainly wasn't going to, so all I was doing was marking time until Kelbo graduated high school and we could have the competition."

A frowning Justin raised a hand and opened his mouth for a question, so Jerry rushed on before he could start to get it out. "So, I decided to spend the summer seeing a bit more of the world. I hadn't been to Puerto Rico before, but I'd heard a lot about the wizard ruins there, so I dug out the remote for the IPP, found a landing spot I could use, and there I was."

"IPP," Max smirked. "That still -" he cut off then, as Tutor tilted her head and gave him a look.

"Max, sweetie, remember that thing we were talking about? About how you shouldn't say some things out loud? That's one of those things." He looked abashed, and Tutor smiled and gave him a quick kiss, which brought a smile back to his face. "Sorry," Tutor said, turning back toward Jerry. "I'm trying to break him of that."

Alex snuggled closer into Justin and whispered, "Remind me to tell her how long it took to housebreak him," which Justin steadfastly ignored.

Jerry looked around. "Is everyone done now? Can I get back to the story?" He paused half a second, then nodded. "Okay, then. Like I said..."

Jerry Russo walked down the street, whistling as he did. The sun was bright, the air was warm, and the smell of the sea was rolling in from the bays in San Juan. It's a beautiful day to be alive. Especially if you're a wizard. A couple of girls were going the other way along the walk, chatting with each other in Spanish, and Jerry watched them out of the corner of his eye. As they came up even with him, he made a little flourish with each hand, then smiled at them and bowed slightly, offering them the two flor de manga he'd just conjured.

They took the pink flowers, smiling. The taller of the pair said something to him in Spanish, and Jerry shook his head, spreading his hands as he did. "Sorry, don't speak a word of it. Do you speak English?"

It was the shorter one who replied, and Jerry took a closer look at her as he did. "Oh, you are American?" Jerry gave a nod in reply, and she went on. "I am Sofia, and she is Isabel."

"Pleased to meet you," Jerry replied with a small bow. "I'm Jerry."

"You are a... touristo, yes? Are you trying to find some..." She trailed off and shrugged, making an apologetic expression.

Nowhere that you'd know the way to, unless you're a wizard, Jerry thought. Aloud, he said, "No, I'm not going anywhere special. But I'd be happy to go anywhere you two lovely ladies are going." He finished with a smile, trying hard not to let it go too far and become a leer. Evidently he was successful, since Sofia and Isabel both smiled in return. "We are going to resort." She pointed down the street, and Jerry turned to see.

The building she was pointing to was obvious - four stories, wide, surrounded by carefully arranged palm trees. "Oh, really? That's where I'm staying," he lied smoothly. "Are you here on vacation too?"

"No, no." Sofia shook her head quickly, causing her curly black hair to shake in waves. The motion made other parts of her shake as well, and Jerry looked down at her body without thinking about it, smiling as he ogled Sofia's body.

This, of course, was completely the wrong thing to do. She lost her smile and took a step back from him, arm moving up to her chest to cover it. Before she could complete the motion, however, Jerry gestured, rolling his eyes as he cast the well-practiced spell: "McReary time-reary."

A moment later, she shook her head again, and this time he resisted looking down at her jiggling body. "No, no - we are going to see..." She paused a moment, frowning. "Broke-dancing? There is a - race is not right word, I know..."

"Break-dancing competition?" Sofia nodded this time, and Jerry smiled. "That sounds fun, actually. Would you mind if I came with you?"

Of course, that wasn't quite the story Jerry told his children. He carefully omitted the ogling and subsequent use of magic from his tale. "That was where I saw your mother the first time - at the competition that evening. And once I'd seen her move, I knew that I was going to be staying at the resort for real, since that was where all the competitors were staying."

"So... you've never told her that?" Tutor asked, frowning a little. "Because the way she tells it, when she ran into you with the smoothie, and that was when you two first met..."

"Oh, that was when we first met all right - but it took some doing to get there!" Jerry grinned a little. "There's a lot that happened there that I've never told your mother about."

Alex raised an eyebrow, opening her eyes from where she'd snuggled into Justin. "Yeah? Like what?"

Jerry only hesitated a fraction of a second, but Justin caught it and smiled a little. Picking what incident he can tell us about? I wonder what all really did happen there. He didn't say anything, though, but simply listened as their father spoke. "Well, some of it is magic stuff - I couldn't tell her then, since she didn't know I was a wizard yet, and later on, well... you know how she can be about magic." He scratched his head a little, frowning, then snapped his fingers. "Actually, there was one that first night..."

Standing between Sofia and Isabel, Jerry pretended enthusiasm as one of the competitors showed off his moves. He was just at the start of his routine, still standing, doing what the announcer was calling 'toprocking' - and while the girls were interested in the male dancers, Jerry wasn't, really. So he was scanning the crowd, looking around at both the spectators and the waiting dancers.

Everyone seemed to be dressed up. The dancers were, of course - all part of showing themselves off - but most of the crowd was as well, dressed to impress on their vacation, to see and be seen. But there was one figure in the crowd who wasn't, who was dressed in simple, stark black - and then the figure moved, and Jerry had to fight not to gasp out loud as he saw it move through the thick crowd as if they simply were not there.

As the shrouded figure moved, those in its path simply moved aside of their own accord, for the most part - but many of them were not looking in the direction the figure was coming from, and should not have been able to see it in order to know to move. And those few who didn't move suddenly shivered as the black figure moved through whatever part of them remained in its path.

The young wizard had met many things - elves, goblins, gryphons, Mother Nature, even angels, demons, and dragons. But he swallowed and shivered as he watched Death himself move through the crowd.

Still leaning over the back of her wicker chair, Miranda felt Lexie shift in her arms, felt the tension slowly draining out of her. Oh, thank God. "You can stay here tonight if you want. You should really be relaxed and okay when you talk to Gigi again, if you two had it out like that."

"No, you were right - I need to talk to Justin. I should go back home tonight and do that while he's still here. But thanks for the offer... and thanks for letting me rant."

"Everybody needs to sometimes. I'm just glad you felt like you could come here and do it." Miranda gave her a squeeze, then started to stand back upright - but Lexie caught her by the arm, pulled her back close, and Miranda let her.

"Thanks. I... I'm really glad you found out about the whole magic thing. It makes it so much easier, to have someone to talk to besides family and Harper." Miranda shifted, turning a little to get more comfortable while still holding on to Lexie - and then Lexie turned as well, pressing her lips against Miranda's.

Surprised, Miranda stiffened against Lexie, freezing where she was as soft lips moved against hers, and small, strong hands set onto her hips, grasping them firmly -

And then Lexie pulled away suddenly, her face red. "Oh - oh Miranda, I'm so sorry, I -"

Miranda opened her mouth to reply, reaching out for Lexie - but before her hand could get more than a few inches, Lexie was already gone, disappeared into thin air.

Author's Notes:

Okay, so... a bit of a short chapter. But that's better than no progress, right? Right!

Answering the questions that I've been getting a lot lately:

Are you planning on continuing [insert name of story]?

Hopefully this new chapter makes it pretty obvious that the answer is yes. Right now, I'm hoping to get back on track by putting up a chapter every week or two, rotating between stories, until all the current stories are done (including the non-AGP ones - Midnight and Out of the Blue).

Are there going to be more stories in the AGP series?

I'm not sure yet. I'd like to continue writing fanfic, but I'd also really like to write something I can actually try to publish for money, and time I spend writing fanfic is time I'm not spending writing that. I may go back to doing just one fanfic at a time - I think I got a little crazy with numbers of stories while I was posting a chapter a couple of times a week. I do definitely have plans for at least a couple more stories in my head once the current ones are done.

What about Wide World of Kink? That's not really a story per se...

I've got two ideas for Wide World of Kink right now, and I'm sure more will come to me in time.

Yay! Oh, and how are you doing personally?

Kind of you to ask! My divorce is all resolved. Part of what's been keeping me busy lately is a new health kick - got established with a new doctor (long story - suffice it to say that I liked my old doctor, but hated his office staff), back on antidepressants and diabetes drugs, and I've lost about fifteen pounds from my highest weight, back in March, and am still losing. I'm thinking I may try to start dating in a few months, so we'll see how that goes...