Plain Sight (Isabel-centric) TEEN 1/1 09-10-07

[cardinalgirl]

Title: Plain Sight

Author: cardinalgirl

Rating: TEEN

Disclaimer: If I owned the show, there would be no reason for this story to exist.

Summary: After Alex's death, Isabel has very nearly lost herself. Short one-shot. In the vein of Confessional.

Author's Note: I'm posting this on a whim, encouraged by Stargazing101. (Thanks, Kay!) This was once the prologue to a fic that will now almost certainly never be written, but I'll just let this stand on its own for now.





<center>Plain Sight</center>

Isabel Evans stared at her reflection in the mirror of her bathroom. She didn’t know how long she’d been standing here—minutes, hours? She was trying to see the otherness in her, trying to see if it showed on the surface somehow. She was sick of it, this thing inside her, this part of her that made her different from nearly seven billion other people on the planet.

And she’d tried. She’d tried so hard to fit in, to make her life as normal as possible. She’d bent herself out of shape, making herself into this person she didn’t even know, and for what? What had she ever gained by it?

It had starting out as her way of hiding in plain sight. She and Max had somehow taken completely different tactics when it came to that, and they’d both fallen into them as naturally and unavoidably as their natures dictated. When they’d been introduced to the public, when they’d stepped off of that school bus their very first day of school so many years ago, they’d started an unstoppable process that had turned them into the people they were today.

Max had chosen the quiet, unnoticed route, not quite fitting in, but definitely never sticking out. Isabel, on the other hand, Isabel had tried to take suspicion off of herself by putting herself right into the middle of things. By being noticed, by being liked.

She’d learned quickly who the popular girls were, the pretty ones who everyone wanted to be like, and she’d thought at that young age that that would be her saving point. She was pretty, after all. It was one of the first things their mother had told her when they’d been found, though Isabel hadn’t understood the word at first. Oh, Phillip, look. Look how pretty she is.

For years she’d blended in by standing out. She was the tallest in her class, and as blonde as could be, and everyone wanted to be her, or to have her. Liz had called her the Elle MacPherson of their sophomore class when they’d first started getting to know each other, and it was a proof—one of many—that she had achieved her goal. She’d become an icon, someone no one looked too closely at, because they thought they already knew what they’d see.

And now, the one person who had taken the trouble to look a little deeper, was gone. In a way Alex’s death justified what Isabel had been trying to do all along, because in a way, he’d died because of her, and who she was. Because of the exact thing she’d been trying to hide. If she’d been more successful, if she’d never let anyone see through the mask her life had become… maybe he would have survived somehow.

Maybe she would have gone through life unscathed.

But as she looked at herself in the mirror now, the truth was more clear than it ever had been. She couldn’t hide behind her face and a harsh expression anymore, and all the blonde hair in the world couldn’t keep herself or the people she loved safe.

She looked at the bags under her eyes, the dark shadows that were starting to make their presence known there. This wasn’t who she was, either. None of what she was looking at matched the person she felt she was inside… whoever that was.

And the hair was the worst. She was sick of the blonde… it felt like a lie. Isabel Evans, blonde bombshell. That wasn’t her. And it was so long… it made her look younger than she felt, and she felt so much older than she was. She lifted a portion of it, no longer watching herself, but staring as the strands sifted through her fingers and fell.

Before she was quite sure what she was doing, she reached down to the third drawer of her vanity, and pulled out a pair of scissors. She grabbed another section of her hair, a thicker one, and swallowing dryly, she chopped it short, cutting several inches off. It was surprisingly simple, and filled her with a rush of something… she wasn’t quite sure how to name it. As she cut another section off, though, and the feeling came again, she finally recognized it. Empowerment.

She sliced off more and more of her hair, each cut making her feel a little stronger, a little more in control of herself. She’d never be able to stop hiding what she was, she knew that, but from now on, she refused to hide who she was. Somehow, by cutting her hair, she felt as if she were cutting the ties to who she’d been before. From now on there would be no Ice Princess, no shutting out every good thing about herself in the name of protection. From now on she wanted to feel things, to live.

The end result, to be honest, looked terrible. Luckily, with a little help from her powers, she was able to fix that, and turn it into a nice, styled bob. Her hair had never been quite this short before, and it felt so light, so free…

But it was still blonde. That ridiculous color that seemed to be the deciding factor in what people tended to think of her, somehow. Isabel had never tried coloring her hair with her powers before, but she didn’t think it would be very difficult. She watched herself in the mirror as she reached up, combing through her now short locks with her fingers, turning the color slowly from its light honey color to a rich, dark brown, almost like Liz’s, though the fact that the association came into her head made her roll her eyes. She wasn’t doing this to look like anybody else, she was doing it entirely for herself. She needed this.

As she lowered her hands, she looked herself over. She looked older, more confident, somehow. Or maybe that was just how she felt. In either case, she liked it. She looked down at the clutter of hair in the sink and on the floor, and frowned at it, waving a hand over the area and transporting the mess to the trash can.

She surveyed her face again. There were still dark marks under her eyes, and her skin was dry. Everywhere were signs of how far she’d let herself go in the last few weeks. Enough was enough.

A few waves of her hand brightened her complexion, smoothed out her skin, and wiped away the signs of wear and tear that she’d allowed to show. At the sight of her face, refreshed, and more importantly of herself, suddenly in control of her life again, she smiled.

She turned away from the mirror finally, and went to her closet, more interested in what she was going to wear than she had been in a long time. She was done with leather and snakeskin and anything like that. She wasn’t selling her sex appeal anymore. Instead she chose a simple, three-quarter sleeve shirt and a long skirt, something she never would have worn in high school.

It was so bizarre to think about the fact that she’d actually graduated. The ceremony itself had been a blur, she’d still been reeling from Alex’s death and Tess’ betrayal. She wasn’t quite sure how she’d gotten through it all. She’d been elected Salutatorian, but had gratefully been excused from giving a speech. She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like, standing in front of her class telling them what a bright future they had ahead of them, when Alex’s future had been wiped away entirely.

Shutting off the thought, Isabel turned from the bedroom she’d used as a retreat for the first few weeks of summer. She’d heard her mother and father talking worriedly one night that she was like a ghost in the house, rarely seen, hardly eating or sleeping. She hadn’t had the will at the time to calm their fears, but she did now.

She found her mother sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of tea and looking over the morning paper. When she spotted Isabel in the doorway, she jumped to her feet, the picture of motherly concern.

“Isabel,” she started, as if she was going to ask if she needed anything, but as she took in the changes in hair and overall look, she stopped short in surprise. “Oh, sweetheart, your hair,” she said, coming towards her daughter.

Isabel reached up to touch it self-consciously. “You don’t like it?” she asked, suddenly worried, as she felt her newfound confidence falter slightly.

“I—” her mother paused, nervously, but as she seemed to get used to the idea, she smiled warmly. “Well, no, of course it’s beautiful, honey. I just wasn’t expecting it. You look wonderful.”

There was a welcoming and a relief in her mother’s eyes that made Isabel smile, as if Diane Evans’ seal of approval was the last sign she’d needed that this was a good step for her to be taking in her life.

“And just in time for the company picnic tomorrow,” she added, with a sort of determination on her face. Isabel knew her mother was trying anything she could to support her daughter’s first signs of recovery, and she was grateful for it, but that wasn’t quite enough to prepare her for what she’d said.

“Company picnic?” she asked. “Tomorrow?” While she was still enjoying the feeling her little make-over had given her, and was determined to make changes in her life, she still wasn’t sure if she was ready to take on the world quite so soon.

Diane, however, seemed to recognize this, and came to stand in front of her daughter, rubbing both of her arms lightly before reaching up to touch her daughter’s face. “Tomorrow,” she agreed, a bit of a challenge in her encouraging eyes. “I think it’s about time you show yourself off,” she said gently, with a bit of a smile.

Isabel heard her unspoken message loud and clear. She’d seen her daughter hide herself away for long enough.

She nodded, feeling tears sting at the back of her eyes as she thought of all the ways her mother was right without even knowing it. She hugged her mother tightly, gratefully. Tomorrow the hiding would stop.



...