Love and Loss (UC, I/Sheriff + I/J implied, TEEN) Pt.1

[Valentine]

Title: "Love and Loss"

Pairing/Characters: Isabel/Jim Valenti, with Isabel/Jesse implied
Rating: Teen
Theme: Angst
Spoilers/Time Frame: During, around, and shortly after "Graduation."
Summary: Isabel says goodbye to someone important.
Part/s: Part one of one.

Author: Valentine (aka BrendansBabe)
E-mail: orange.words@gmail.com
Website/Blog: Livejournal
Other Fanfiction: Listing

Disclaimer: I own nothing at all concerning Roswell and all its copyrights.
Feedback: I love feedback! Let me know what you like, and what you hate.
Distribution: Feel free! Just ask first, pretty please.





She had kissed her clean-shaven lawyer goodbye, and climbed inside of her new home.

He slid her wedding rings back onto her finger, and already they were heavy.

She knew. She knew that in a month, in two months, she would drop the rings into an envelope and into a mailbox, once again leaving them in his hand.

She meant what she said. His life was his to live, not hers to endanger.

So she kissed him goodbye, wrapped tightly in another man's olive green combat jacket.

The whole time she had been saying goodbye to her husband, another had been on her mind.

Her protector.

She absentmindedly toyed with a loose string at her left cuff, fighting tears.

Where had he gone?

For a second, she entertained the fear that he was dead, a casualty of their "intergalactic" war.

The thought caused her to gasp out loud, hand pressed to her stomach.

Maria was there to lay a hand on her arm, and lend a low and soothing voice.

"It'll be alright. It'll be alright... It'll be alright....."

The words looped inside of her head, meaning nothing as the letters began to meld together.

"...alright... allllright..."

Jesse still stood where they left him, a blue grey smudge against the hard red rock. A safe lawyer, with a future... and without a wife.

And she was left without a husband. Forget the fucking husband. She was left without the only one who mattered.

Miles later, she felt their van slow. Her hands stilled, no longer twisting her rings over the rawness of her fingers.

She held her breath, the pain of her knuckles forgotten.

His jacket pulled tight.

Goodbye, and goodbye, and goodbye. Things would not, could not be alright.

"...alright, alright... alright...."

The loop continued, and she fought the urge to run from the van into his arms.

She held the armrest in a death-grip as Kyle opened the door, and approached the man who blocked their way.

Perhaps the two of them should have never begun anything in the first place, but this was still no way for it to end.

She couldn't even kiss him goodbye, or tell him that she loved him.

"Sheriff, I have a flat."

She couldn't smooth the hair back from his worried face, or lie down beside him and simply sleep.

She couldn't make love to him.

Kyle hugged his father, and she choked.

Muffled, she heard it.

"I... love you."

In that second, his eyes flashed to hers. Across all of the barriers, his eyes spoke.

"I love you."

She lifted her hand up to the glass of the window, trying to touch his face through the clean coldness of glass.

"I love you too."

And then she did cry, as she saw him turn away from her in grief.

She sobbed, doubling up upon herself, holding the sleeves of her jacket to herself as if they were her only lifeline.

A second later, Kyle returned, and the engine revved.

He'd get them to Arizona.

She had until Arizona.

They returned to the road, and she stayed pressed up against the back window.

Could they spend an eternity like that? She told him that she was sorry, and her told her that she had nothing to be sorry about. She told him about her husband, and he told her about his son. They shared loss and love, and loss again.

Wordlessly, they conversed.

Miles away, and only a few panes of glass and feet of asphalt apart.

Arizona approached, and he departed. He faded away, sitting on the side of the road. She saw him remove his hat, and sob.

She turned her back on the window only when he had faded from sight.

She slipped her hands into the pockets of his jacket, and frowned.

In the dim darkness of the van she pulled a relic out of the right pocket.

His badge.

She had changed it once, as a practical joke.

Isabel and Jim forever.

It was a silly schoolgirl thing to do. She had only wanted to see his expression, his annoyance, his mirth.

He had laughed and complained and told her to change it back.

She never had.

Here in his coat pocket lay a part of his heart, set aside especially for her.

Running her thumb over it's engraving, she said one more goodbye.