It was midnight, and Justin Russo was worried about his sister. She should have been back hours ago. Even if she doesn't know better, Mason should. He scowled, looking around at the living room. And it should be Mom and Dad waiting up for her like this, not me. He dug a finger into his neck, scratched it hard. Feels like I'm the only responsible one around here.

Taking a deep breath, Justin took another look around. The open living space was full of memories - fights between him and Alex, magic gone wrong. It was here that she'd told him why she'd made the duplicate of him that she'd sent off to college, that he'd told her that he wanted to go to med school. Here they'd fought, argued, made up, hugged...

And I'm leaving in two days. It was going to be strange, living in California. He'd wanted to go to Harvard or Johns Hopkins, but their programs were incredibly competitive... and also incredibly expensive. UCSF wasn't as prestigious, but it was ranked in the top five medical schools in the country for doctors aiming to go into medical research, and it cost only about a quarter of what the other two did.

He'd be on the other side of the country, but maybe that would be a good thing. I'm not going to have time to be fixing all the problems here. Alex is just going to have to -

There was a sound at the door, and Justin looked up, watched as it opened and Alex came in, moving quietly as she could. Mason was still out in the hall, and the two of them spoke softly for a moment, too softly for Justin to make our the words, but the tones he knew. He knew all of Alex's tones - angry, mocking, happy, whimsical, wheedling, distraught, every emotion a voice could carry, he'd heard all of them from his little sister, at one time or another.

Now, her voice was happy, tinged with regret for an evening over before she wanted it to be. Mason responded, and those tones Justin didn't know as well, but he could imagine the boy's response - reluctant to leave, but needing to nevertheless. Standing up, Justin walked to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, poured himself a drink, concentrating on the gurgling sound, suddenly not wanting to hear them.

Once the glass was full, he put the carton away, closed the refrigerator door, then drank quickly, letting the sound of his own swallowing be his focus. Before the glass was empty, the bright yellow door opened, and Alex came in, sidling through into the living room. With the lights on, she knew immediately that someone was up, and she looked about, then rolled her eyes as she saw Justin.

Justin turned, set the dirty glass in the sink. "You're late," he said, his tone even, his voice level.

"Yeah, well, to quote a certain someone, I no longer have a legally enforceable curfew." Alex hung her jacket by the door, started toward the stairs. "So you don't need to wait up for me."

Closing his eyes for half a second, Justin bit back the first retort that came to mind. Instead, he said, "Alex... you need to learn to be more responsible. I'm not going to be here in a few days. You -"

Already three steps up the stairs, Alex whirled and looked down at her brother. "Spare me the lecture, okay? I'm a big girl now, Justin. I know what I'm doing. In case you've forgotten, I can do magic too," she said, pulling out her wand and circling the tip in the air. "And I'm out with a werewolf. Anyone who tries to mug us or something is going to wish they'd picked someone else."

Frowning, Justin crossed his arms, coloring a little as he did. "Alex... I know you can take care of yourself like that. It's just -" He stopped then, unable to get the words out. It's just that I worry about you. It's just that you're too impulsive, too likely to do something you'll regret and can't undo.

"What?" Alex walked back down the stairs, over to Justin, stopped a couple of feet in front of him. "If you're that worried about me," she said, her tone sliding from annoyance into anger, "why are you moving out to California? Shouldn't you stay here, where you can watch me? Huh?"

Justin looked away and down, said, "Alex... you know why I'm leaving. Please, let's not argue about this again."

"Yeah," Alex snapped then, turning as she did and going up the stairs hurriedly, making Justin cringe with the way she stomped on them. "Let's not. You're not Dad, Justin, as much as you'd like to be." Reaching the top of the stairs, she stopped, bowed her head down a little to look at him. "And you know what? I wish you were gone already!"

Alex stared at her brother for a moment as he blinked at the acidic anger in her tone, his mouth open, unspeaking. There was hurt in his eyes, and she knew she shouldn't have said that, but she was too angry, too frustrated, too hurt to take it back, so instead she stood back up and hurried to her room, before the tears could rise up and betray her.

Watching her go, Justin swallowed and blinked quickly. Damn allergies, he thought, but he knew quite well that the burning sensation in his eyes had nothing to do with pollen. She didn't mean that. Not really. Right?

The next day was Saturday, and Alex stayed in bed even later than usual, not emerging until almost four in the afternoon. She came out irritable, snapped at Max as he ran back and forth, trying to be helpful in getting Justin's last things together. His flight was leaving at five in the morning - something about tickets that she'd tuned out as soon as her dad had said 'lowest price' - and of course, Justin had to have everything ready and laid out to go.

Mom was cooking already, and she made tut-tut faces as Alex pulled frozen pancakes and microwave bacon out of the refrigerator. "Mija, we're going to be eating in just a couple of hours. You know that. Why you'd want to wait so late to get up on your brother's last day here -"

Alex was just as used to tuning out her mom's rants as she was her dad's, though, so she simply stood and watched the turntable in the microwave, humming as she did, doing her best to ignore all the activity around her as well.

Feet came down the stairs, and she knew without looking that it was Justin. He was the only one in the family that walked like that on the stairs, quickly and almost noiselessly. Max and Jerry didn't care about noise, and Theresa complained when other people made it, but didn't do anything about her own, while Harper was slower on the stairs than Justin.

And tomorrow I won't hear those feet on the stairs. No. No. No thinking about that. The microwave dinged, and Alex took her plate up to her room, turned on her stereo so she wouldn't have to hear everyone moving around below, getting things ready to go, and ate as slowly as she could.

And I wonder if you know

that I never understood.

That although you said you'd go,

until you did, I never thought you would.

- Don McLean, "Empty Chairs"