Disclaimer: I don't own the characters
Couples: Strongly Isabel/Alex. Probably also some Max/Liz stuff in due time, though Max hardly even appears in part 1
Category: Angsty, romance, drama, sci-fi.
Rating: Adult
Summary: The night of Alex's wake, Isabel goes back by herself to the cemetary... and finds a new mission and maybe, a hope for the future.
Author's note: Yes, I'm starting yet another new fic. Hope you like it!
I tried making myself a banner for the first time. Here it is:
After leaving the wake, Isabel hung around with Max and Michael and Tess for a little while at Michael's apartment.
But nobody was saying much, and Isabel had the awful sense that she was the reason why... that the three of them would be able to find something to talk about among themselves, but none of them had any idea what to say to her. And she didn't really feel that much like spending time with them either... not that she'd ever have admitted it.
But the feelings of loss and grief that Isabel was starting to face now, after truly realizing that Alex was gone from this world, were so huge and overwhelming, and the other aliens didn't feel it the same way. Sure, they missed Alex already, and had been shocked that he'd passed away so suddenly, upset at the senseless tragedy, but their loss was deeper, because Alex hadn't meant as much to any of them. Liz or Maria might feel the same way as Isabel herself did, since Alex had been a longtime close friend to both of them, but Liz had been ranting about Alex getting murdered at the wak, (only to those of them in the conspiracy of course,) and Isabel wasn't qute sure what she'd say if she went to the DeLuca house. She'd always had particular difficulty trying to relate to Maria for some reason.
So she drove back up to the cemetary and sat by herself next to the fresh grave. Just sat there by herself, for a long time, until she heard footsteps coming up behind her through the grass. Wondering if it was some groundstender who would chase her away. But when she half-turned and looked up, it was a familiar face.
"Isabel, you shouldn't be here right now," Alex said. His voice was soft and considerate. Somehow Isabel didn't really doubt her sanity in the face of this obvious hallucination. Maybe she'd fallen asleep in the darkness, or maybe not. It didn't matter to her.
"Said the pot to the kettle," she teased him, getting up to her feet, and waving slightly at the grave site and what was underneath. "And, if you're about to protest that you don't have any choice, that you had to be here... then maybe the same applies to me."
Alex smiled slightly, not really addressing what she'd said. "Is there... is there anything I can do? Those words have possibly never sounded so lame, but I had to ask."
Suddenly Isabel wanted very much to ask him for something, if only to make this phantasm of Alex feel better. "Play me a song."
"I don't have an instrument here."
"Enough excuses, dead boy. Just play." And, somewhat to her surprise, the fantasy of Alex suddenly had an accoustic guitar slung around his neck. Alex seemed startled by it to, but walked a little ways around and sat on his own headstone. He riffed around on the guitar a little, checking to make sure that it was in tune and his fingers were kink-free, and started to play a mellow, but somewhat melancholy, harmonic line. Isabel sat down on the grass again, where she could watch him best.
Just as he opened his mouth, Isabel realized that she had never heard Alex sing while he was alive... well, nothing other than commercial jingles (or parodies thereof,) when a bunch of them were together eating lunch, or hanging out at the Crashdown some fall evening. When his voice emerged, it was a rich, throaty baritone which complimented the guitar perfectly.
"Well, it feels like slow motion,
I hear the gun explode
See the flash, that brings me to my knees.
And I feel the warmth, flowing out of me..."
After that somewhat somber opening, Alex smiled at her and headed with a more upbeat tone of his voice into the chorus.
"But in my mind, I'm climbing up the stairs,
And walking down the hall.
And Heather's standing there.
October 'Ninety-nine.
I see us in New England, in the fall...
Our love will last forever, like that eight by ten
Hangin' on Heather's wall...
Hangin' on Heather's wall."
Isabel wasn't quite sure what to think yet. The next verse, (they were short verses, apparently,) was back to being angsty and depressing.
"I see the money on the floor.
And his gun, there by the door.
He was trying to rob the bank, when I walked in.
Oh, but this is not the way it's supposed to end!
'Cause in my mind, I'm climbing up the stairs,
And walking down the hall.
And Heather's standing there.
October 'Ninety-nine.
I see us in New England, in the fall...
Our love will last forever, like that eight by ten
Hangin' on Heather's wall
Hangin' on Heather's wall."
No matter how depressing the subject matter was, especially under the circumstances, Isabel couldn't help but shift her weight back and forth to the rhythm of that refrain, and hum along a little bit... the tune was subtly and oddly compelling.
Alex went into an impressive instrumental solo after that verse. For the bridge, though, he abandoned the strings of the guitar entirely and just tapped along to keep the beat alongside his own voice.
"Someone, somewhere says 'we've lost him now.'
But I look up, and I see Heather's smile.
So how can I be dyin'?" (He started playing again at this point.)
When I'm climbing up the stairs,
And walking down the hall.
And I see a bright light there.
October 'Ninety-nine.
And that picture, of New England, in the fall."
Isabel started joining in, and Alex let her carry the line, and sang counterpoint chorus.
"Our love will last forever, like that eight by ten
Hangin' on Heather's wall... (Our love will last forever)
Hangin' on Heather's wall... (Our love will last forever!)
Hangin' on Heather's wall--"
Isabel shot him a long look once the music was finished. "Why did you have to pick a song about a guy dying and thinking about the girl he loved??"
"Well, I couldn't really think of anything else," Alex replied, "and it seemed appropriate, even on the nose."
"'On the nose' in a pretty morbid way." She sighed. "Can love really last forever, if you're gone?? I mean, I know you're not gone exactly, but you can't just show up in my mind whenever I need you. Even if you could, it's not enough."
"I don't know, I'm sorry." He told her. "So, what was the other thing you're upset about?"
"Are you trying to distract me?" she asked him.
"Maybe. Why not let me?"
She let out a long, deep breath. "There was a big argument at your wake. Liz started it... waving around some concert tickets and saying that she thought you had been murdered."
Alex stiffened in surprise. The guitar had vanished again, now that it wasn't needed. "Tell me the whole thing, as much detail as you can remember."
"No. Sorry, Alex, I appreciate that you're trying to keep me diverted, but it'll just upset me more to..."
"I'm not asking this to divert you, Isabel," Alex said clearly. "This could be... could be VERY important. I need to know what Liz said, what anyone else who was there said, what you saw... all of it. Someone else's life might hang in the balance!"
Isabel looked at him oddly. Up to know, she'd been acting under the assumption that talking to Alex like this, even the song, was another dream or a waking dream, something of the sort. Maybe a specific type of hallucination. She saw Alex because subconsciously, she wanted to. Now she wasn't so sure, with how oddly intense he was being about a particular point. Could she have made that up, just to make him seem more lifelike?
But he was getting an impatient look on her face, so she told him the entire sequence. How Liz had spoken to Alex's father at the gathering, then disappeared for a while, and reappeared with important news that she refused to share until Max showed up. Isabel repeated or paraphrased everry word spoken, about concert tickets and suicide theories and alien responsibility and Vilandra's usurping lover, and more. Told him how Max had stormed out, and, stunned by Liz's allegations, the other three hybrids had followed him in a show of solidarity.
"Alex, you're worrying me," she muttered when she finished, because Alex's face had grown more intent and cold. "You said that a life might hang in the balance. Whose life? Liz's??"
"Maybe," Alex admitted. "She won't let anybody talk her out of her decision, if she's determined to get to the truth about my death. And I'm very worried that without anybody to protect her, that something horrible could happen to her before she finds that out... or immediately after."
"What?? Come on... why? What's the big secret, Alex? How did you die?" She stared him down.
He dropped his eyes, unable to face the ferocity of her gaze. "I... I don't know, okay? I realize that that might sound weird, but I don't. I remember... I remember Liz and Maria leaving, and then--" He frowned in concentration, and maybe a little discomfort. Isabel opened her mouth to tell him that it didn't matter so much, but he continued just as she was about to actually speak, and the words died within her. "Driving somewhere, not sure where. East along nineteenth street, yeah, that's right - I remember passing Garden avenue."
"And... and then?" Isabel asked.
"Then nothing - until I was walking into the Crashdown. I was a little confused about how I got there, especially since it was suddenly daytime, but I tried to play it cool and figure it out as I went along. Saw you sitting in a booth, so I came over, and you told me that you were going to wait and graduate with the rest of the gang."
Isabel smiled, though she knew that there was a deep sadness down inside her, and that would probably make the smile very forlorn. "Alex, that was a dream. I remember it very well, but I remember waking up from it, being in my bed, and crying, and my mother hearing it." Alex looked uncomfortable. "What else?? The other dream I had about you, where I told you I loved you... do you remember that?"
"Very clearly," he said. "I think... I think by then I was starting to realize that something was wrong, partly just because you kept saying that it was all your fault. I didn't really know what you meant by it. But now..." He got up from the headstone and waved a hand at the writing on it. "That kinda drives the point home very clearly."
"Okay, so you don't know how you died," Isabel recapped. "How do you know that it wasn't a traffic accident?"
"I'm not sure," he said after a moment. "Maybe it was an accident, but I'm almost convinced it wasn't an ordinary traffic accident. For one thing, what Liz said about the fact that I was in on your secret rings true. I didn't live an ordinary life, and most high school kids don't get crushed in a car wreck before they graduate. Those two facts have to be connected." He paused for a second. "And I'm very damned sure that I wasn't trying to kill myself. I had too much to be living for."
"Well, that's all well and good, but it doesn't explain why you think Liz might be in danger."
"I... There's a darkness, Isabel." That odd, compelling certainty was in his voice again. "A darkness that's been hovering around my life for the past several months. That's what the police saw, and they explained it by saying it fit a suicidal profile. But it wasn't just depression, it was something outside me, something that started outside my life. Something that has to do with Sweden, maybe... or at least it seemed to start around then." He stared at Isabel, and she was helpless to look away and break that eye contact. "I drove straight into the darkness that night, Isabel... and they had to put me in the ground for it. If Liz is trying to find out what happened to me, she'll be heading into that darkness too. You can't stop her, but I think you can protect her, and help her find the truth. If you do, then I can help both of you, as much as I can. But I'm stuck away from the action if you don't get yourself onto the team."
"Why not?" she asked curiously. "Can't you appear to Liz, too??"
"No, I don't think so. Not even sure I can even walk away from you, though I can probably leave you and go nowhere... like I did between those dreams, and between the dream last night and meeting you here now. I'm tied to you somehow, Izzie, I don't know how, but you're my only hope."
"I... I need you to tell me something, to convince me that you're you," she said. "Something that I could never possibly guess right, because otherwise I'm afraid that I could just be imagining this."
"Hmmm." Alex thought a while about that. "Okay, I have one, but it should probably wait until you have paper and pen ready." Isabel looked the question at him without words. "Well, two reasons - one, it's long enough that it'd be a little hard for you to memorize at once. Secondly, well, if you're a little worried about your mental stability, then if it was something you memorized, you might start to think it was just your imagination that it matched up right... that your memory was changing to match the reality. Checking what you'd written down would be a little more concrete."
"Just what is this that you have in mind?" she asked him.
"The start of a book report that I did back in grade three, and that I know for a fact my mother kept a copy of, as recently as the week before last. Can't imagine she'd chuck it so soon after I... well, you know."
All of a sudden, something clicked in Isabel's mind. She'd get him to dictate that quote, and check it with his parents -- but as of now, she really did believe. "Okay. So what do I do, just go up to Liz and say 'I wanna help you find out the truth?'"
Alex shrugged... and all of a sudden, both of them were surprised by a hugely deep rumble of thunder from right above them. Isabel hadn't noticed the storm clouds rolling overhead in the darkness, but she noticed when the rain started to fall down more and more steadily -- first just a stream of sprinkles, then pelleting drops, then a downpour. By the time Isabel had dashed into her car and slammed the door, it looked like someone was throwing bucket after bucket of water on the windshield.
She looked over at the passenger seat, and sure enough Alex was sitting there, though she hadn't heard the door on that side open or close, and he looked perfectly dry and calm. "I... I admit I'm curious," she said. "Can I... can I touch you when you're like this? Do you know?? Would you mind if I tried?"
"I... I'm not sure, I admit," Alex said. "My guess is, you can't really. I mean, I don't see how I could still have a physical body. But maybe you can *think* you can. Go ahead."
She reached out, moved her fingers towards his own... and felt the contact. His fingers were solid and warm, pressing against her own. Then again, he looked and sounded exactly as if he were really there, so why should the sense of touch be particularly different? Relishing this new discovery, she let her fingertips trail up his hand and the bare length of his arm, to the point where a short white t-shirt sleeve took over. Curious, she shoved him in the shoulder, a little harder than she meant to.
"Hey, cut it out!!" Alex protested. "Hurting a dead guy is just adding insult to injury."
"Okay, okay," Isabel said with a sigh. She still wasn't quite satisfied... what would happen in a situation where, without Alex's body there to bear actual weight, her own self, or something else, would fall straight through the place he seemed to be? Would he just wink out at that point, or maybe a hologram effect like on one of those corny sci-fi shows? Well, she might be able to find out more about that some other time... assuming that Alex didn't disappear on her one of these times.
But he'd told her forever. Maybe not directly... but somehow, in the same way that Isabel believed in her gut that this was the real Alex, she knew that it would be a long time before she saw the last of him.
She pulled the car carefully through the water-drenched car paths of the cemetary and out onto the main road. Peaceful Pines, (yes, that was really the name, Peaceful Pines Cemetary,) was out on the west side of town, near the school and in the direction of Frazier woods, so Isabel made her way to the main road, Second street (also route 70 and I-380,) and headed through the center of town, since her parent's house was on the east edge of Roswell. Something occured to her. "You say that you remembered driving east at nineteenth street and Garden avenue, right??"
"Umm... yeah, why??" he asked.
"Just trying to sort some things out in my head. They found you on route 70, heading east just past the city limits, not far past my place."
"Okay," Alex said. "Not quite sure what I was doing off there, but maybe I just wanted to head into the desert to think about something, or try to clear my head."
Isabel nodded - that question hadn't been what was bugging her. "Well, your house is in the northwest quadrant, and nineteenth/garden is in the northeast. If you were heading for the highway, why would you have crossed main street that far north? It would make more sense to me to swing down onto main street, turn left onto second and head out of town that way."
"Well... the Crashdown is right at the center of town, at main and second," Alex pointed out. "And I knew that you were going to be there."
"So, what... you couldn't even drive past the place?" she asked, a little offended by the suggestion.
"I'm not saying that, or theorizing anything," Alex quickly insisted. "Just pointing out one possible correlation."
"You should have *come* to the Crash," she said softly. "I know it's a little late to play should-haves, and I'm not trying to make you feel bad. Just... if you'd come and hung out with me, and the rest of the gang -- then none of this would have happened." And she sighed. "I know, I know it probably wasn't that simple... if this mysterious 'darkness' hadn't got you that night, maybe it would have waited and pulled you in some other time." Alex didn't say anything in reply.
Just about then, they came up within sight of the Crashdown, and Isabel realized that the dining room lights were still on, at nearly 11:30. Maybe, just maybe, Liz was in there, closing up, or maybe just sitting in one of the booths feeling sad. Isabel decided to go and see, so she turned the car north onto main street, and then quickly left again, into the parking lot. One deep breath, then open the car door and make a dash for the front door.
The rain had started to ease up by that point, and soon she was huddled under the little overhand to stay out of the rain, knocking on the front doors. Wasn't long before one of them was pulled open "What is it now? Oh -- Isabel! I, um, I wasn't expecting..."
Isabel stared at Liz. It was obvious, somehow, from one look at her face that she had been crying, and yet that crying had not been the only thing she'd done for hours. "Umm... can I come in?" Isabel asked timidly, not really wanting to get into all of this while still standing outside. Liz stepped back and held the door open for her, and Isabel walked in, looking around as a way of stalling. She noticed, idly, that Liz had changed since the big argument, because she was wearing dark slacks and a light cream sweater with long sleeves.
The familiar space of the dining room seemed somehow different. Partly that was just because of the regular changes between it being ready for business or closed for the night, she supposed... no silverware or condiments out at the booths, chairs stacked up on some of the tables.
But there were other differences too... one small but centrally placed table, for instance, was practically covered with little photo prints, some of them stacked in piles nine or ten pictures tall. As far as Isabel could tell, all of the pictures had Alex in them, though he was just in the background of some of them. Over at one of the booths, there was a much larger picture... the shot of all eight of them - Max and Liz, Kyle and Tess, Maria and Michael, Isabel herself and Alex -- that was the pic taken at the end of the pre-Prom party right there in the Crashdown dining room. And over on the counter, there was a small portable CD player, and an arrangement of flowers, a thick book, and some little paperey things that I couldn't make out immediately without obviously peering towards them.
It wasn't immediately clear if Liz had just been taking a melancholy walk down memory lane, or if she'd been hunting for more clues. Isabel decided to get straight to the point. "Liz... if you're really trying to find out the truth, and not just trying to create a scapegoat to blame Alex's death on, then I want to help you."
"You do??" Liz blinked slightly and rubbed at the skin under one of her eyes. "Why? I mean... you didn't seem interested in it when I first told you. What's changed??"
Isabel paused, and while she was thinking Alex walked past Liz and started examining the things on the counter. Liz gave absolutely no sign that she saw any trace of him, or felt his presence or anything, At that moment Isabel decided that she wasn't going to tell the other girl anything about Alex's ghost. It wouldn't help anything for Liz to decide that Isabel was in the middle of a traumatic breakdown, and if she got the notion that Isabel was making fun of her somehow, it could be quite counterproductive.
"I... I was surprised by the notion, and I didn't want to believe that... that knowing me could be part of the reason why Alex was dead. That someone could have killed him because I love him, or anything like that. But what you said about owing Alex nothing but the truth... it took a few hours for that to get past my barriers, but it rings true. That's why I want to know what really happened, and it sounds like you've already figured some stuff out. I'd rather work with you than seperately."
Liz smiled slightly. "Okay. I'll need all the help that I can get. Any idea where you want to start??"
"Um, I really dunno. You've been on this for a while - maybe you should catch me up to speed??"
Liz considered that for a moment. "I, um... how about we leave it until tomorrow, actually? It's been a long day for everybody, I know it has for me at least, and I feel like none of my thoughts are under control. Maybe things will fall into a sensible order more naturally after I've gotten some sleep."
"I don't know how I'm going to get any sleep tonight," Isabel complained slightly, even though she knew that trying would make sense.
"C'mon, Izzie," Alex said to her in a slightly cajoling voice. "I'll come home with you, since Max and your mom won't see me anyway, and I'll try singing you to sleep. How does that sound?"
It sounded delightful, but Isabel knew that Liz would probably hear if she actually said anything in reply, so she just smiled - not directly at Alex, but close enough to his side of Liz that he'd know it was meant for her. "Actually, yeah, I should go home and lie down, at least. Hope you can sleep okay, Liz."
"Um, thanks." Liz rushed over and hugged Isabel, which she took for an impulsive gesture and a sign of just how shaken up Liz was, but she didn't really mind.
"Um, do you need a hand cleaning up in here?" Isabel asked softly.
"Well... there's a box on the table there," Liz said, pointing, as she went around the counter to unplug the CD player. "If you can just put all the photos in there, that'll be all the help I need I think."
"Alright." It seemed a little like make work, but Isabel didn't mind if Liz wanted to make her feel needed. She stacked the pictures in pretty quickly, even though she couldn't help but stare for a few moments at three or four that particularly caught her eye. Then she told Liz goodnight, and Alex was waiting for her at the front doors. This time, she did see him running through the light rain beside her, and in the car his hair and his t-shirt definitely seemed wet, though he wasn't dripping on the seat.
It didn't take Isabel long to drive the rest of the way home, and the house was dark and silent as she entered, though her mother called out from the master bedroom and switched one light on, and seemed relieved that her daughter was back home. She held the door open for Alex to go into her bedroom ahead of her, though she wasn't sure why, and smiled a little nervously once the door was shut and they were both inside.
"Umm... I can probably 'blip out', if you like, while you're changing," he said. "If it'd make you feel more comfortable?"
"No, don't go away entirely," she said in an intent, low voice, not wanting her parents or Max to overhear. She wasn't quite comfortable with the idea of taking off her dress, (the black dress, the one she had worn to the funeral,) while he was watching - at least, not tonight. So, she searched her mind for a compromise. "Maybe, you could go back out into the hall, or into the bathroom, until I'm done changing?" Another thought struck her. "And settle once and for all whether you can walk through walls now?"
Alex grinned at that thought and pointed himself towards the wall that her bedroom shared with the bathroom. Isabel watched him as he approached it... Alex seemed unable to muster the nerve to walk through it at full speed, in cast it should hurt as bad as if he were still alive, so he stopped at the wall first and carefully tried to push a hand through. The fingers and about half of his palm went in, or went through, or at any rate they weren't still in Isabel's bedroom proper. Smiling with the success, Alex shoved the rest of his arm through a bit at a time, up to the shoulder, and then shuffled the rest of his body sideways through the barrier. When all that was left was the other arm, up a little past the elbow, it waved a hand at her, and then withdrew. Isabel giggled slightly and started to undress.
Another thought occured to her. How was she supposed to call him back in, when she was done, without possibly attracting someone else's attention? She couldn't really whisper through the wall, and if she opened the door... well, she could probably pretend she'd been going to the bathroom herself if it looked like anybody else had noticed. Still, if she was going to be spending much time with Alex's ghost, she'd need to find some better way of communicating with him than that sort of thing. Experimentally, she focused hard on words in her mind, trying to send them out to him. **Can you hear this, Alex? Can you see me?** (She hadn't realized, until she sent it, that she was also worried about if Alex could see through the walls now.)
"Yeah, I can hear you fine, and no, I can't see through the walls exactly," he said, loud enough for her to hear him through the wall. "But when you're sending to me like that, I kind of get a faint impression of what you can see and feel, which included, at that point... umm, the near nakedness part. Just so you know." Isabel blushed and tried to keep her mind as blank as possible until she was safely back in her PJ's and a dressing gown.
**Okay, you can come back in now.** This time, Alex walked confidently through the wall as if it wasn't there, which reminded her very much of the Al effect from those old 'quantum leap' shows. "Now, I believe you said something about singing me to sleep?"
"I did," he agreed, as she started to pull back the sheets of her bed. "Any requests? Should I go a capella or do you want to wish up another instrument for me? Maybe a piano??"
Isabel looked at him, perplexed. "Me? Didn't you wish up the guitar??"
"It... it didn't really feel like it," he admitted. "I kind of thought you did it on purpose... you said 'no excuses' and bam, I had a guitar."
"Okay, let's test this," she said. "Start with something small. Is there a musical instrument you know how to play that's, like..." She gestured with her fingers, indivating a size from about two feet to much less than that.
"Umm... still know how to do okay with a recorder," he suggested. Isabel thought of Alex with one of those little fipple flutes, and smiled.
"Okay, concentrate and try to give yourself one," she suggested. Alex screwed up his face, but there was no result.
"I can't do it," he said. "You try."
Isabel shrugged and visualized the instrument appearing in Alex's hand... and suddenly it was there. She looked at his face to see if he saw it, if he could feel its weight... he smiled and brought it nearly to his lips... hesitated, wiped the mouthpiece off against his shirt, (was he worried about where the instrument had been before she conjured it? Maybe it had ghost-germs living on it??) and then played a short and merry tune.
"That's nice," she said. taking off the dressing gown and lying on the bed. "But I'd prefer to hear your voice instead, actually. Just your voice."
Alex smiled, reached out, and pulled the covers over her, Then he pulled a chair over close to the bed and sat in it. (How could he affect physical objects? Was Isabel imagining it, or doing these things herself?) He opened his mouth and began to sing, "Winter snow is falling down, Children laughing all around. Lights are turning on, like a fairy tale come true. Sitting by the fire we made..."
Isabel remembered turning around slightly, looking up into Alex's eyes as he sang, and closing her eyes. Then nothing, until...
----------
All of a sudden, Isabel realized that she was in a very different bedroom, sitting up against a pillow, with her legs hanging down to the floor... and wearing her light brown jacket. Alex was across from her, sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed, his head tilted down but looking up at her through his eyelashes, and he was waring what looked like black sweats.
"Huh?? What happened?"
"Well..." Alex looked around the room slowly, taking its measure, and smiled. "What do ya know??"
"I, I don't understand. Am I dreaming again??"
"I think we're both dreaming," Alex decided, and scrambled up half onto his knees with a smile, Their lips met, and the momentum of Alex's body was pushing her back against the headboard, her hair falling askew.
"AAglx," she mumbled... not offended or upset at his sudden display of affection, just very much caught off guard by it. Alex broke away almost at once, frightened for a second, but he grinned when he realized that she was smiling, her eyes shining slightly. He wrapped one arm around her back and pulled her smoothly down further onto the bed, so that her head could lie on the pillow, golden tresses spreading all about it.
"I... I've wanted to do that for so long, but it didn't seem right... not when you were awake, when I wasn't really there," he whispered. "But now... do you recognize the scene that we dreamed this based on??"
Isabel thought, and things snapped into place. "When I came to your room and begged you to take me to the dance." Alex nodded. She reached up and stroked the side of his face slightly. "I finally get it together enough to come right out, and tell you a bit of how I feel about you, and, and..." She took a deep breath that came out sounding quite a bit like a sob, and Alex quickly reached out to hold her tighter. Tears started to fall down from her cheek onto his shoulder.
"It'll... it'll n..never be the same," she managed to choke out. "Not like it should have been me and you together for a rea-- reasonably long, happy life. I'm glad that you're here, like this, because if you weren't I'd be a wreck, but it's not enough. And... and when we find out who killed you, you'll probably fade away for good, because that's what ghosts do in all the storybooks. They're stuck here on Earth to settle one big, unresolved issue, and then they fade away into the great beyond, or whatever."
"If there's one big, unresolved issue that I left in my life by dying early," Alex said slowly and softly, "then it wasn't the mystery of who killed me. That doesn't even come close by comparison. It was you, Isabel, always you. Never being confident enough to show you all that I felt for you. Leaving like this. If there's something that's keeping me here on Earth, Isabel, then it's you, and that means I'll be with you as long as you need me to."
She looked at him and smiled, her eyes no longer watering. He reached to her face and dried off her cheeks. "Oh, shoot," she mumbled after a second. "I forgot to take down that dictation thing, when we had a chance, in my room before I fell asleep."
Alex laughed softly. "After all this... are you still worried that you're going crazy, and that I'm not really me?"
"Umm... I dunno," she admitted. "Would be nice to be sure beyond all possible doubt, you know? Or nearly all possible doubt, because I guess nobody can no for certain that everything they see isn't a hallucination, or some computer program being transmitted to a bunch of brains in a vat or something else outta the Matrix."
Alex nodded. "Okay, fair enough. We can do it tomorrow morning, when you wake up, and then maybe you can go and pay a visit to my mom and have breakfast there. I know that she'll be happy to see a friendly face today, and somebody that she can feed."
"Okay," Isabel agreed with a smile. "Maybe I'll even tell Liz to meet me there." Alex nodded. Isabel paused in thought.
"Any idea just how far we can go, making out in a dream?" Her voice was lilting and just a little flirty. Alex shook his head, and smiled.
"No... but something tells me that the two of us are going to find out before too long."
"Oh, you better bet on it!" She kissed him with a passion that suprised her, and began to bring one hand up under the front of the sweatshirt he was wearing, stroking the skin she found there.
Unfortunately for both of them, a few instants later that particular dream dissolved into the chaotic storms and winds of the subconscious mind during peaceful sleep.
----------
Isabel sighed as she woke up, and looked around her room. The chair was still pulled up, close to her bed, but... but of Alex, there was no sign. She got up, panicked for about a second, and tried a thought broadcast. **Alex! Where are you??**
"Not so loud!!" Alex walked right through the wall again, wearing a big white t-shirt with tiny little rhinos on it, and long striped boxer shorts. Isabel blinked at him in surprise. "By the way, could you wish me up a toothbrush? I may not NEED to use it anymore, but it still kinda helps the day get started." Isabel laughed slightly and made the mental effort - it wasn't even hard by this point. Well, it hadn't been hard the first time, with the guitar. "Oh, and a glass of water?"
She got showered and dressed quickly, assured Mom and Dad that yes, she *would* be getting breakfast, and headed out. Max didn't really make an appearance, and somehow she was glad. She wasn't sure how she felt about him, and had no idea how he'd react if he found out that she was working with Liz, after he'd gotten so upset.
Once they were on their way, she tried to think of something good to say to Alex. Mostly Isabel just wanted to hear his voice. The restrictions on Alex coming up with new objects to manipulate himself didn't seem to apply to clothing particularly, and the t-shirt he was wearing now was a just a solid blue, along with jeans. Blue looked good on him, Isabel decided. Flattered his skin tone or something.
"Any tips on what to expect from your mom? I... well, I don't think I ever even saw her before the funeral, and didn't really get a chance to talk to her yesterday.
Alex thought about it for a moment. "You'll like her," he decided after a moment. "A little like your own mom in some ways. Very sweet, very old-fashioned in some ways..." He trailed off with a soft sigh, and Isabel decided not to ask him any more questions in that vein... she could certainly understand that they might be bumming him out.
Isabel had to try three times to actually get her hand to knock on the Whitman's door. Fairly quickly it was answered by a slightly short woman with a poofy bob of dark hair, and a smile that Isabel thought would usually be well described as 'friendly,' but that didn't fit especially well at the moment. Even with the melancholy expression on her face today, though, Isabel decided that she liked Mrs. Whitman a lot.
The older woman took a moment to show any sign of recognition, and Isabel was just finishing a mental self-kick and opening her mouth for a self-introduction when her smile widened slightly. "Isabel, yes? Izzie Evans??" Isabel nodded. "Well, what are you doing here this morning?"
"Um, pardon me, please, if it's presumptuous of me," Isabel blurted out. "I... I was hoping you'd be in the mood for a little company. Breakfast??"
Alex's mother suddenly grinned, and then so did Alex, invisibly to her... standing next to Isabel and slightly behind her. "Come in, come in. I expect that Alex told you that feeding people makes me feel better when I'm blue?"
"Something like that, yeah," Isabel agreed, hoping that she wouldn't ask just WHEN her son had imparted that little tidbit sometimes. "I'm that way with organizing my things, sometimes, or volunteering. 'S therapeutic."
"Yes, I think you do understand," she replied. "Okay, umm... how does French toast sound?" Mrs Whitman had led the way into a small dining room that could have been icily formal, but had been decorated in such a way as to warm and brighten the starker feeling of the basic room. She waved at the seats, and Isabel took one. Alex hung back, watching from the doorway.
"Well, I'm more of a pancakes and eggs girl usually," she started, "but that sounds nice. Umm, do you have anything spicy I can try putting on it?" Mrs Whitman looked at her a bit blankly. "It's a family thing. Tabasco or anything with red pepper flavor in it is great."
"On french toast?" she confirmed, and Isabel nodded. "Well, we don't generally go in for really sicy stuff, but I think there's some Thai sauce that Alex... um, that Alex bought and didn't finish."
"Okay... I think I can find it," Isabel said. Alex came over and pointed it out. The little bottle was labelled 'Sriracha' and it turned out to taste pretty close to Tabasco, except not quite as much flat-out heat and a little special zing that Isabel couldn't make out immediately. She shot a look at Alex, not THINKING anything at him, but she wanted to bring this up later. Hadn't Liz said that the Thai food guy was the last person to see him, after she and Maria left? Was there some possible connection??
Liz showed up just as Isabel was finishing off her first slice of french toast, just about the same time as Alex's dad showed up, and the two of them started talking about some summer trip that she had gone on with Alex's family, years and years ago. Izzie went into the kitchen; Mrs Whitman was beating some more eggs and milk, in preparation for making lots more toast, she guessed.
"By the way, Mrs Whitman... Alex mentioned something to me once about a report he did in the fourth grade on James Madison -- I'd kind of like to see it. Do you still have it?"
She smiled in mid-dip. "Yeah, just found it again while going through some boxes the other week... did he mention it since then?"
"Um, yeah actually."
"Well, I'll get it for you if you keep a watch on the stove." She slapped the dipped bread carefully down onto the hot frying pan and hurried off. Isabel watched carefully, not sure what she was supposed to be looking for, other than curls of smoke which would be a very bad sign.
"Here you go," Mrs Whitman said about a minute later, hurrying back into the kitchen, handing a folder to Isabel and flipping the toast. The pages inside were a little weathered by time, and had been typed out on an old-fashioned manual typewriter, and inexpertly. But it seemed pretty good for a fourth-grader, and Isabel pulled out the little piece of paper that she had written based on Alex's dictation to compare it against the original - word for word perfect. That would seem to settle that.
"It wasn't even an assigned school report, though I made sure that his teacher saw it," Mrs Whitman mentioned as Isabel wandered back into the kitchen from the hallway and put the report down on the countertop. "He just got it in his head to write up a paper, because he 'liked Mister Madison.'"
"Wow," Isabel breathed. Writing a paper about a president was about the furthest thing she could think of from being her idea of fun when she was little... or just about any time in her life, come to think of it, even though she did enjoy reading about history sometimes. But it made some sense, given what she knew about Alex.
She took a piece of french toast into the dining room for Liz and Mister Whitman to split, and listened to them talking about a trip to San Diego.
TO BE CONTINUED...
And it shouldn't be too long before we get to the answers about Alex's death in this story's universe.