Time After Time (Book 1)

Chapter 10

"Girls! Twins! We're going on a road trip!" Alaric shouts in the hallway. He enters his daughters room first. "Come on girls, we're going to get the urn." He tells them. Lizzie groans as she sits up. "And why are we going right now? We couldn't go later? Like in an hour....or two?" She yawns. "Nope, now get dressed, we're leaving in 30 minutes." He leaves their room to knock on the twins door. It turns out to be empty so he goes to check on Hope but finds that she's missing too. He sighs and goes to the docks and finds them all training together. The twins both have bamboo sticks while Hope has two halves of one. She uses both to spare against her kids. "Marshall, go high!" Andrea tells her brother. He jumps high and strikes his mom mid-air while Andrea goes for her legs. Hope backflips out of Andrea's attack while blocking Marshall's mid-air. She uses her sticks to knock his out of his hands, causing him to lose balance and fall on his sister.

"Oh fuck, that hurt." He groans. "Hell yeah it did, get off of me! You're heavy!" Andrea struggles to get up. Marshall climbs off his sister and helps her up. Hope tosses them both a bottle of water before grabbing her own. "You two may be my kids, but you're not as good as me." She smiles. They roll their eyes. "You caught us off guard Mom." Andrea tells her. Alaric then steps onto the dock. "Hey grandpa." The twins smile at him. "Hey, I need all of your help with something." He sighs. "Help with what?" Hope asks. "Finding an artifact I may or may not have.... misplaced when I was slug drunk...." He looks away. "Seriously?" Hope looks at him. "Yeah." He sighs. "Alright, come on twins. Let's all go shower and change." The twins follow their mother while shaking their heads at Alaric. "I can't believe you grandpa." Marshall tells him. "Well, i- I just-" Alaric sighs. "Just get to the car in 30, ok? I gotta find Kaleb."

Thirty minutes later, everyone finds themselves in an old mini-van, driving to a small town that they found through a locator spell for the urn. "Dr. Saltzman this van is very....white of you." Kaleb tells him. "It's retro." He says back. "It's a gas-guzzling atrocity on wheels." Lizzie mumbles. Hope sighs as she sits up with a bag of food. "I brought snacks." She tells everyone. The twins chuckle at their mom from the back seat. They glance behind them to see Dorian and Emma following them in a small two door car. Hope hands them both a sandwich and they smile. "Thanks mom." They both say. "Oh perfect, did you pack them before or after you decided to FOMO your way onto our trip?" Lizzie teases. "Like I'm gonna let you guys chase monsters without me?" Hope asks her. "Hold up, did the twins just call you mom?" Kaleb asks as he turns around to look at them. "Wow, I almost forgot, Kaleb doesn't know, does he?" Andrea asks no one in particular. "Oh, no he doesn't. Kaleb, the twins are from the future. And apparently their Hope and Josie's kids." Alaric casually says. "Say what now?" Kaleb looks at him. "Yeah, I've gotta tired of explaining it." Alaric shrugs. "And I'm sorry if I wanted to protect the outside the world from my mistakes. You know, there's currently an urn on a river cruise spreading plagues across America because I thought a unicorn was cute. It's called accountability, maybe there's a bracelet for it." Hope tells her. "Ooh." Kaleb sighs. "Damn mom." Marshall whispered. "What? She's suddenly all cold with me and I can't snap back?" She turns around. "Or maybe you just wanted to ruin yet another Saltzman spring break." Lizzie looks out the window. "When have I ever ruined a spring break?" Hope asks her. "Oh no." The twins mumble. They glance at Josie, who seems to be blissfully unaware of what's going on. "You know, it would help if it wasn't a thousand degrees in here." Hope tells Alaric after he told them to basically get along. "I'm burning up." Lizzie scoffs. "You're burning up, now that's ironic." "What does that even mean? Lizzie we're gonna be sister in laws, the least you can do is not be cryptic." "Well, we aren't yet. At least not for a few years, right twins?" Lizzie glances back at her niece and nephew. "So, don't play dumb. I see you, I see right through you." "What are you talking about? What happened to playing nice?" Hope asks. "Over. Done. I'm getting back to me. I am who I am. Right, Josie?" She looks over at her sister who seems to be ignoring her. "Josie?" She asks again. "Sorry?" Josie takes her headphones out. "Josie, you cannot leave me alone with just her for company." "Well, I get carsick if I don't listen to music." Josie puts her headphone back in. Lizzie sighs and shakes her head. "Fine, at least I have the twins." She looks behind her and sees them both doing the same thing. "Oh hell no!" She tells them. "What? Blame Ma! We get carsick too. Genetics, remember?" Andrea tells her. Lizzie groans and turns back to her sister. "Josie!" She grabs her arm. "Hey!" Josie shouts. "Watch it!" Hope shouts as she tries to shove Lizzie's arm back. "Girls!  Girls!" A car honks at them as Alaric swerves of the lane. "There's no reason to be tense or awkward ok? Hope, Lizzie, you're going to be sister whether you like it or not, that is unless you don't have to the twins be a part of your family. Josie, Hope. You're gonna get married someday and have the twins. It's clearly inevitable. Unless that is, you don't want to be their mother's and have them cease to exist. Now knock it off. We're gonna get through this together. God help us all." Alaric sighs. "Whoop. Road trip." Kaleb suddenly says. After a few seconds, Andrea suddenly speaks. "Um, mom. Can I get a bottle of water?" She asks. "Yeah sweetie." Hope reaches in the bag to grab a bottle. She turns to hand it to her daughter when it slips out. The bottle falls to the floor at Josie's feet. "Oh I got it." Josie bends down and grabs the bottle before turning back to her daughter. "Thanks Ma." "No problem honey." Josie says before she realizes what she was saying. "Did I just....um..." She decides to put her headphones back in and turns to look out the window. Hope looks back and forth between her and Andrea.