Almost a month had passed since the twins were reunited with their mother, defeated their father and Willow was recovering from a stab wound. Today was the day that Willow got to go home. Her mother and brother came to pick her up. They had moved back into the mansion. The basement had been completely gutted and redecorated. The cage removed. Any resemblance of their old life was removed and replaced except for all the twins old baby things they were put into storage. Two rooms that were always intended for the twins to use when they were older. Were redecorated too. The old nursery became a sitting room for Cassandra. Due to the mansion having so many rooms. Alice, her children and her grandchildren ended up moving in. The whole family were together. Willow got a taste of this when she arrived at the mansion. As she was helped out of the car by her brother and she approached the steps she was greeted by everyone. The children were excited to show her to her new room. After slowly climbing the stairs they gave her the grand tour. Last but not least was her room. Decorated just how she imagined her room being if she ever had her own house. Which Arthur knew because well it was a twin thing. Willow had dreamt about a room decorated like this the entire time she was at the hospital recovering. Once he knew what she wanted via the twin thing he instantly set about getting it done. Safe to say Willow was overwhelmed when she entered the room. But she was very happy with it in fact she cried. The children piped up that they helped and she gave them big hugs. Then Arthur helped her onto the bed. Seconds later in came Alice and her children with a tray of some food etc. Willow felt weird about getting special treatment. She looked forward to being fully recovered so she could do things herself. Witches can heal themselves but only if they are strong enough and still have powers. The entire time Cassandra was being tortured she was too weak to heal herself in the beginning then she had no magic to help. After all the magic the twins had to do against their father and of course the spell Willow did to reverse her mother's spell then restore her mother's magic she wasn't able to heal herself. Even with all the rest she'd been getting and the fact the worst of it had been sorted by the doctors it just wasn't possible. She was strong enough to do little spells like float a pen which reassured her that her magic was still working though.
This frustrated her immensely. Her mother kept telling her to stop stressing that she would be healed and strong enough soon. She just had to allowed herself to get better. After saying thank you she ate her food and drank her cup of tea. Then everyone cleared out of the room because Alice told her that she needed to rest. At first she wanted to argue against that but not even seconds before they all had left the room she had put her tray to one side and drifted off. Alice took the tray and left her be. The past almost month had been strange. Everyone was getting used to the new family dynamics. Annabeth's children had to go from calling Arthur Uncle to just calling him Arthur. Then despite loving him as her own Alice had to accept that Arthur had his mother back and that she was his aunty that he wanted to get to know his real mother. He of course was very grateful to Alice for raising him. He didn't miss his father one bit. Any good memories they had were now tainted by knowing the truth and of course the big thing the way his father treated his mother and well everyone else too. He was super grateful to be rid of such a monster. Cassandra was having a hard time adjusting to being well free. She was able to roam about the mansion any time she liked. She didn't have dread the daily beating's that she would receive from Matthias. Of course she was grateful to be free and have her children back but it was strange and the dreams replaying her time as a prisioner didn't help either. She was working with Alice to try and over come that time in her life. It was in no way easy part of her still feared that Matthias wasn't really dead that at any moment he could come bursting through the front door of the mansion and drag her down to the basement again. Of course the twins, Alice's children and grandchildren didn't know her dreams were plagued with nightmares of that monster. Alice was the only one who knew especially as she slept in the small room that used to be a closet next door to Cassandra's room so if ever she got too loud while having a nightmare then Alice could wake her up.
With her newly restored powers Cassandra did put a sound proof spell on her room but Alice was there just in case the spell didn't work. No harm in being extra sure no one else knew after all it had been many years since she had used magic so if she was rusty that would be understandable but good to be sure. For this rather complicated family the mansion that used to hold very few good memories they were on their way to making the mansion they're own. With the hopes of elimating all memories etc of that horrible man. Anything he had bought himself any portraits he had commissioned had all been removed and burnt. They were getting there with removing any trace of him. To be perfectly honest who in their right minds would want any reminder that such a cruel man existed. It was a miracle that as each day passed the twins looked more and more like their mother. All that was noticeable was how stubborn they were an unfortunate trait they shared with him but a good thing for them was that their mother was very stubborn too so they were actually a good mix of both stubborn traits. Lots of things had happened but now everything about their past was cleared up and they got a second chance with their family especially their mother. The big question was what now?. How were they going to move forward with their lives. The money Matthias left wasn't going to last forever they did live in a mansion and well running one is not cheap. The closure and the need for public or private funded preservation societies all over the world when it came to big homes was a big give a way in that sense.
The twins were already out of school so they would need to decide what career path they wanted to take or did they want to go into further education and get a part time job. Very big decisions to make one's that Alice and Cassandra were determined that they take seriously. After all they needed to be realistic the adults in the roles of looking out for them etc weren't going to be around forever. A fact that should make a lot of sense to Willow. She already lost one set of parents and an aunty she at the time thought was her grandmother. Just because she found her long lost mother, brother, aunty and apparently cousins doesn't mean she would get a free pass to take it easy. Now was the time for their lives to really begin. They done the whole soul searching to discover who they are, helped defeated an horrible brute of a man and saved a town in the process now shit was really about to get real. What they had already been through was tough granted but just because they got dealt a crappy hand doesn't mean they would stop getting them. There is a saying from somewhere the hardest thing to do in life is live so live like your life depends on it. Or something like that anyways. Point is life is tough no one said it was going to be easy and if you were told it would be easy then that person was bullshitting or did not understand life at all. If it was easy everyone would have everything they wanted and well things like war wouldn't effect people that badly because no one actually wants to get killed or anything so in the spirit of getting everything they wanted bad things wouldn't happen. There either wouldn't be any currency so everything free or money would be unlimited. Well you get the drift. Having everything easy not exactly a good thing.
So despite their troubles seemed like the best thing for the twins was to move forward and get started on their future. After all one's past does not define their future if they happened to be good people that bad things just happened to happen too. Karma is a batch though so if your rotten to the core with no hope of redemption then all the bad you just keep putting out will just keep biting you on the ass one way or another period. Trouble is though the twins faced what all young adults inevitably face. The paralyzing realisation and fear that they had literally no clue what they wanted to with their lives. Even though they knew it was perfectly acceptable to make mistakes and start over the issue was where to begin. They began to miss the chaos that was their lives. Before It was easy really simple something was missing from their lives they needed to find out what. Once they did it became about surviving their nightmare of a father. Then defeating said father and saving the town. It was very straightforward their own survival instincts kicked in now those instincts were none existent. They knew deciding meant knowing how to secure their future best they could even if that meant having to change the how a couple of times. It felt like too hard a decision for such newly exposed shoulders. Part of them wanted to bury their heads in the sand which was one thing to add to the list of normal things they should be experiencing. Not everyone has planned their careers out since they were old enough to know how to talk etc. There was nothing wrong with being frozen to the spot with your mouth open when it came to that decision either. Have a plan that's really detailed good for you but not everyone maybe barely anyone is going to give you a gold star or pat on the back every time you accomplish something without hurting yourself.
The twins played around with many ideas including taking a year off to travel the world. Well they were alright for money for at least five years. As long as they don't spend like their lives depended on it and buying anything they thought looked good. That went for the rest of the family too. After discussing it till it couldn't be discussed anymore and they covered every detail worth covering they decided that's what they were going to do. The town was safe Matthias was gone so it made sense to experience as much of the world as they could. Cassandra and Alice agreed they could literally do anything as traveling didn't have to mean just being on holiday experiencing posh hotels and some cultures in other countries. They could also temp various different jobs or intern to get an idea of what they would want to do. So they picked two main countries they would consider actually settling down and working in permanently then they applied for the necessary visas that they would need to stay and work in those countries. Plan was to try out as many temp or intern jobs as they could in those countries they picked to see if they liked any of them. Of course hearing back if they got accepted for their visas would take awhile. After all things don't just fall into people's laps. Or did they well it's debatable especially as there are folks in the world who do seem to have everything to go their way. The twins were taking a huge step so if it was going to go well remains to be seen.