Part 18
Carolyn:
You did a beautiful job of portraying Max's desperation......and yes, that was a full blown panic attack.
I hate that he now feels connected and dependent upon Tess in his life at this point.
Yes, it sucks that Max feels close to Tess... especially since a lot of you don't quite know Tess's intentions yet, but it's important for her to be close to Max right now... not only to drive the plot forward but to further drive a wedge between Max and the others.
But Max is an honorable man.......
I like that you still feel that way. Max might not be my favorite character, but he
is an honorable man... and Max always ends up doing what is right... even if it takes a while for him to get there.
Eve:
It is always the same with the Aliens: he reacted so badly to the humans suspicions and never even thought that something could be wrong or that Liz could be right... So he just slept with Tess who never said even no and now, he regrets it...
Yes, Max and the other aliens seem to discount the human's opinions and fears a lot in this story, and when they have to yell and shout and get mean to get their points across, the alien's run and hide or to things they later regret to just get a moment of satisfaction of cutting them down to make themselves feel better.
For people who will do anything to keep their human friends from harm, do a lot of the real damage to them. Huh, life's a bitch, right?
'sorry' doesn't make sense but then, I forgot he is 17 and we all know what are men's hormones, at this age...
You're right, apologizes will not be an instant fix here... but Max is seventeen and hormonal. His penis did think for him before his brain did in this situation. Maybe Liz will take that into account too when she finds out...?
A/N:Well, here's a new part 
I hope you all enjoy (Well as much as you can enjoy pain, sorrow, and anguish 
)
Song of the week is: 'Always Find Me Here- Transit' play when you see 
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Isabel was nervous. She had only been up to Alex’s room once before… the day before prom. She had snuck up to his window, her palms sweaty as she knocked softly on the glass window, her hair in loose curls winding down to the small of her back, and her heart beating a mile a minute, threatening to jump into her throat and out her mouth. The minutes ticked by into what felt like eons as she twirled her hair around her finger, messing with the hem of her beige leather jacket, trying to look perfect and irresistible for him as she waited for Alex to open up the window and let her in.
It was silly—almost bordering on a morbidly funny tone now that she had time to think back on it—but she had been deathly afraid of being rejected by him again…of feeling her heart shatter once more at the thought of not being able to go to prom with the one man she had secretly hoped would take her since sophomore year. She had feared that there were no more second chances, no more chasing or pleading left for either of them. It had been now or never. She had to win him back… or she would lose him forever… and that possibility had simply not been an option.
Isabel scoffed to herself, a bitter laugh wanting to pass her lips. If only she knew then what she knew now, huh? Oh, God, wouldn't she give anything to feel even a fraction of what she had felt then… to be able to feel that now, to be
that naïve again? Isabel would kill to desperately believe again that waiting outside a one-story window pane and fear being rejected twice in one day was what true pain must have felt like. God, would she give up all that she owned to believe that being told ‘No’ was the worst thing that could ever happen to her… for that to be the only thing that she was
truly afraid of.
Maybe Max had been right when he told Liz, that she, too, should give up on chasing ghosts before she lost her damn mind living in what could have been… of what had once been. She should learn along with Liz that there really was no amount of superficial pleading in the world that could change the sorrow that was slowly building in all their hearts. Isabel’s worst fear had come true… She had lost Alex forever to the one thing that even an alien hybrid like her had no magic wand to wave over… Death.
Isabel started a little as she heard the door leading into Alex’s room swing open slowly in the afternoon breeze, almost like it was deliberately trying to torture her with what she might find on the other side of the door… but it was useless torture.
Isabel knew exactly what she would find behind that slowly opening door… She wouldn’t find a damn thing… nothing at all. Alex was gone and, it was foolish of her to wish for anything different. He was buried underneath six feet of dirt at the Roswell Cemetery… and that was where he would remain for all of eternity. She might as well accept it.
Isabel walked over to the door, pushing it open further; her hands were shaky with sweat… and the eerie creaking sound of the wooden panels beneath her feet could barely be heard over the quickening of her breath as she walked inside. She stopped suddenly, stock still, as she felt every part of her body quiver to the tips of her boots, her heart plummeting, crushing her chest cavity as if a sledgehammer had hit her in the chest, forming a lump in the pit of her stomach that made her breakfast churn.
It all breathes Alex Whitman, Isabel thought breathlessly as she looked around the room,
inviting and nerdy. An almost hysterical giggle wanted to tear itself from her larynx as wet tears slipped down her face. The whole room stood still along with her, dust collecting in the air… yet everything still vibrated with so much life, like his invisible presence was the thing that was holding her in place. The remnant energy of his life force coursed through her in jolting waves of familiarity, making everything come alive within to wreak havoc on her already frayed senses. Being in Alex’s room was like living in a memory of what had once been, almost as if Alex himself was standing right there next to her … smiling down at her as he showed off the autographed Third Eye Blind poster that was still tacked up on the yellowing wall.
Her fingertips ghosted over the small, strange knick-knacks piled up to the hilt into the storage boxes stacked high on his bed. She looked closer inside, grinning fondly at the ton of multicolored post-its written in chicken scratch with nonsensical information stuck to the forgotten eschewed things that she remembered seeing littered across his computer desk that night she had talked to him about going to prom. A few other items still hadn’t been packed away yet, including the worn and used computer science and lit textbooks aligning the top shelves alphabetically in random intervals, the outer edges dog-eared and yellowing with well-loved use…
Her sigh turned into a sob when she saw the old Nirvana t-shirt she had expressed mailed to him back when he was spending Christmas in Sweden. It was folded neatly into one of the boxes and she plucked it up with delicate fingers, holding it close against her nose to smell the already fading scent that still clung to the fabric—a lingering musk that filled her every sense with a deep, overwhelming sorrow. She sniffed, tears now streaming down her face in waves.
Isabel continued to cry, her arms folded over her body as she clung tighter to the shirt, needing to feel as close to Alex as she possibly could now. She prayed that she would just wake up from this horrible, cruel nightmare. Sure, she’d be kicking and screaming at the top of her lungs … but she would be okay… she would feel sane again with the ability to breathe. And she would finally be able to go on with her life as the core of herself became centered again into the right direction, able to label this
shitty little ‘episode’ of hers into a filing system in the back of her brain; one that was never to be examined or visited again… Because she knew that, once she woke up, that she would be able to see Alex’s handsome face again, waiting for her in the hallways of school with a witty joke and goofy smile on his face that was meant just for her…
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that the infamous Isabel Evans was feeling sorry for herself,” a familiar voice spoke, causing her entire body to jump in place as though a cup of ice was poured down the back of her neck, searing her skin with a deep bone chill that ran down her spine.
“I bet you’d look good wearing my shirt.” The voice joked good-naturedly, a hint of something primal and possessive in the way it was spoken that she didn’t—
couldn’t—want to read too much into. Isabel closed her eyes, clenching the shirt tighter to her person as two similar scents intermixed together to once again fill her every pore, driving her wild.
“Shut up… Go away…” Isabel whispered, pleading with what she was certain was her own mind, playing tricks on her, punishing her for whatever sins she’d ever committed with delusions of
him. She prayed for the voice to go away, for
him to go away. Isabel really couldn’t afford to lose her mind right now, on top of everything else that she’d recently lost.
“I can’t,”
he said nonchalantly, a strange noise of cardboard rustling against fabric sounding behind her. “You want me here…” A spring in Alex’s old bed squeaked behind her, informing her that he was, in fact,
not going anyway.
“Why would I want that?” Isabel huffed bitterly, her frustration rising high and threatening to crush her underneath its exhausting weight. She just wanted
him to go away! She just wanted to stop thinking about him!
“I don’t know,” he answered, and Isabel could tell that he was probably shrugging mockingly behind her. She narrowed her eyes around the fringed fabric of the shirt collar; she felt her hands starting to ball into fists.
“Why are you still dreaming about me when I told you not to?” he asked, an eyebrow probably raised.
Good question, she thought, her anger still rising,
why was she? Because obviously dreaming about him wasn’t doing her any favors, except on a one-way ticket to the loony bin.
“Get bent,” Isabel growled, the dam that had been keeping her week-long mounting frustrations at bay finally breaking down and spilling over into every muscle and pore in her body. “I don’t need this shit!” She nearly shouted, only stopping herself when she realized she wasn’t in her own room… in her own house, and she refused to cause a scene in front of anybody besides herself. She was a perfectionist like that… “And I definitely don’t need you popping out of my dreams and appearing in my everyday life, driving me crazy with your nonexistent presence. I already do that to myself enough by thinking of you 24/7, and I don’t need you—whatever you are—encouraging it!”
“Hey! Number one…Put my shirt down if you’re going to rude; you’ll spread bad juju all over it with your bad attitude…” He sounded testy, and Isabel couldn’t help the strange sense of self-satisfaction at his annoyance. She shouldn’t be the only one exasperated by this new development. “And number two, I don’t want to be popping in and out of your head either, but I’m not doing without a reason.
You want me here… close by.” He paused, a slight tilt to his lips. ”Hell, you’re already always thinking about talking to me anyway, I just figured I’d make it easier for you by always being around when you need to talk now.”
Isabel groaned, willing herself to turn around and look at the source of the voice... to look at
him. She couldn’t cower behind a plain old t-shirt forever. Isabel Evans might be many things, but a coward wasn’t one of them… and she would be damned if she started acting like one now. She had to buck up; it was time for her to know if this was all
really real, or if she was slowly losing her ever-loving mind. She needed physical evidence to know whether he
really was there with her.
Isabel turned on the balls of her feet, her eyes still closed as she held her breath.
She could do this! she chanted over and over again in her mind,
She could do this… She stopped, opening her eyes, and a crazed laugh left her mouth before her hand could cover it. She felt her excitement building, trying to break free against the reins she had on her erratic emotions, alternating between manic sobs and giggles.
He bowed his head, smiling goofily at her as she saw tears well in his eyes. He was there! She thought wildly, the hole that had begun to form in her heart scabbing over and healing.
He’s sitting right there and smiling at me, she laughed,
Just like in my dream… just like I hoped for.
A wide grin crossed her face as the overwhelming happiness grew. Alex smiled back shyly, his curly dark hair somehow glowing in the afternoon sun. “Are you real? Am I dreaming?” She quickly blurted out to distract herself. She wanted to avoid letting the desire for what was happening right in front of her fade away into the background as reason tried to take over. If she allowed herself to really stop and think about it, she would find it was absurd… find it downright impossible for Alex Whitman to be right there in the flesh, looking across at her, still smiling. She knew that once she gave herself time to come back to herself and think clearly about everything that was happening, that she would let the happiness she felt at being about to see Alex in real life, not just in her fantasies, slip away from her and have reality come crashing back… that she might, in fact, be dreaming a dream that she would possibly never wake up from.
“I don’t know...” Alex answered, his brows furrowed in confusion at the suspicion look she was directing at him. “I know that you probably won’t be seeing me in your dreams anymore…” He paused, like he was trying to think of the best way to explain the answer to a complicated question to her. “At least, It won’t be the real
me you’re dreaming about… That is, if you decided to still dream about me in your sleeping hours,” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, snickering a little before getting serious again, “Why?” He questioned, twiddling his thumbs as a look of hurt and spreading confusion flashed in his eyes. “Don’t you want me here… like
this?” He pointed to himself with both of his hands.
She stared at him, her eyes wide and serious.
Did she? Did she want him here… like this? She honestly didn’t know. Sure, it would be simpler to keep telling herself that she would survive the pain of losing Alex if she could continue to have her deepest fantasies only exist in the dream realm of her mind… that death was far too final for what she was feeling to be anything but wishful thinking come true. The grim reaper was uncontrollable… it’s immense power irreversible. Death was forever, and she needed to learn to accept the knowledge of what was and what could not be changed… to leave behind all the uncertainties of what she didn’t fully understand and the fears that constantly plagued her heart. As much as she wished that there could be, there was no button that she could push to help her turn back the hands of time. Isabel couldn’t will Alex to life— no matter how much she wanted to. He was dead—despite the evidence trying to mount up to the contrary—and everything was different now because of it. She was
different now…
Isabel had allowed all that deep rooted sorrow and pain to swirl around within her, burning her raw and gnawing on her obviously waning sanity. The blinding white rage and overwhelming sense of foreboding that she had always felt in her stomach had now built into an abyss of
nothingness that she tried daily to stuff into the back of her brain so that she could get through the day. It’s ropes had twisted, winding tight and molding her into the person she was becoming now, someone who was only willing to see what she wanted to… not willing to live with what was clearly right in front of her.
Isabel had to turn all these nefarious things that were hiding and growing inside of her into something productive, to allow it to change her into something that she could stand to live with. She couldn’t keep letting the eternally expanding dread of what others might think of her, of any flaws and insecurities that might peek through the cracks of the carefully designed picture of perfection that was actually her body armor run her into the ground anymore. And if the empty, dark room she was now standing in, seeing her delusions come to life— the
exact same room that had once belong to the real
Alex Whitman, but now only consisted of packed boxes and flights of fancy that she wanted to be true—had taught her anything, it was that nothing lasted forever… and even the irrational amount of happiness she felt at seeing her illusions brought to life before her couldn’t last.
Life was a weightless, fleeting thing that was just waiting to float away into the wind. So why not take any form of merriment she had left in this juncture of her life and run with it, even if that form meant that she was hastily losing her grip on reality?
“Why is this happening to me?” Isabel asked herself, her hands tangling in her hair. Alex tilted his head, gazing at her intensely. It was like he knew that she was holding herself back by not answering his earlier question.
But he must not have seen much weight in pushing her because instead he said in a droll voice, “I think it’s… you know… an alien thing…”
“I don’t know about that,” She scoffed, her eyes downcast. She didn’t look back, not ready to give her hallucination that much leeway over her yet. Her increasing insanity may have chosen to manifest itself in the form of Alex, but it wasn’t truly
him and she wasn’t about to grant her illusions permission into her heart. Her heels scraped a little against the hardwood floors of his bedroom. “I think it’s more of a freaky
me thing…”
“Maybe,” He shrugged, the springs of the twin bed bouncing a little along with his movement. “Does it
really matter, Iz? I’m here now…”
“Yes, it matters to me!” Isabel snapped, looking back up at him again with a glare in her eye, once again wanting to slap Alex Whitman in the face.
For someone who said that they were doing all this for her own well-being, he was expertly trying to piss her off. “I want to know the extent of just how far I’ve lost my damn mind!”
“Pipe down!” He hissed, his posture stiff and his expression cool. “I don’t need you scaring my parents. It’s not like
they can see me!”
“Fuck you.” Isabel cursed, jumping off the bed and away from him. Suddenly being near him made her feel as though she was being stripped to the bone, with all the layers taken away and fed to the birds. She didn’t like feeling this fucking naked in front of someone she was convinced wasn’t even alive anymore… but then again, she had always felt like she was one step closer to falling off the edge of a cliff when Whitman had been alive anyway.
“Look,” Alex growled, his jaw square and his hands clenched. “I don’t want to fight with you…”
“Then stop pissing me off.”
“Yeah, okay. I’m the problem here.” He barked sarcastically.
“Alex…” She warned.
He sighed in defeat. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Isabel,” he said, his voice sounding like he was a thousand years old. “I don’t know why I’m here or what that means, and I can’t reassure you that you may not be losing your mind… but I
do know that I want you to be happy, and that I did the only thing that I could think of to do.” He finished, his face pleading with her to forgive him for something that he honestly didn't need to be forgiven for. “I don’t want you to hate me for trying to make you happy, Iz…”
Isabel exhaled; the argument had already exhausted whatever reserves she had left. She didn't want to fight anymore either… she
couldn't fight anymore. It took energy that she didn't have to be angry nowadays. Besides, it wasn't Alex’s fault that approaching insanity didn't settle well with her sensibilities.
“Not very smart of you, Whitman…” She murmured. Her mind was running a mile a minute, and she wanted it to stop. She wanted to stop feeling like she was a ninety-year-old woman, instead of the eighteen-year-girl that she was. “You could drive a girl to drink, you know,” she joked lamely, trying to make the hurt and confusion that still etched the lines of Alex’s face go away… but her laugh sounded forced and tired even to her own ears.
Alex chuckled anyway at her lame joke, taking the peace offering like she knew he would. “I guess you’re right about that, but well…” He paused and another intense look that Isabel didn’t want to think too deeply about—
it was love, it had to be—passed over his face. “You’re not like other girls.”
You could say that again, Isabel thought bitterly. Not even Isabel herself knew anyone that was quite like her. She was one of a kind.
Isabel smiled and Alex smiled back, “Why are you wearing that?” she asked a few seconds later, pointing to the outfit that he was wear and finally realizing that Alex wasn’t dressed for the New Mexico heat. He was wearing a ridiculously thick denim jacket over a stereotypical red and black-stripped flannel shirt with a faded pair of black jeans and steel-toed boots. It made her sweat just looking at it.
“You must be hot…” she whispered, sitting back down next to him, her fingers itching to touch the uncovered parts of his skin… to make the final plunge into embracing the crazy roller-coaster she was about to call her life now. It was one thing that her heart was telling her that the apparition before her
looked real, that Alex had somehow come back to her… but it’s a whole other matter when asking if he would
feel real. Could she touch and hold him with all her might, feel the warmth radiate off him through the seams of his heat- inducing clothes and onto hers as his arms embraced her back?
Oh God, Isabel sure hoped so. It’d been so long since she was near someone that felt something besides despair and anger, a person that made her aware of the fact that she was made of flesh and bone… that
life still coursed through her veins, that her heart could race from something other than fear as she felt a deep spike of contentment and anticipation and longing flow through her, making her veins tingle at the possibility of something tangible abating her own rapidly growing isolation and loneliness.
“Isabel, I’m dead.” He answered a few seconds later, his voice casual as his middle finger grazed the skin of her exposed arm.
She shivered, looking down between them and noticing that their fingertips were inches away from the other. She didn’t know what compelled her to move her hand away from him… but she did, an almost stoic look crossing her face.
He blinked at the removal of contact. He moved his hand away too, his rapidly cold demeanor thoroughly chasing away whatever was left of the haze of her daydream. “I don’t quite feel the hot and cold quite like that anymore…” he answered, his expression cold and unyielding.
“What do you feel?” Isabel asked, hiding the growing blush behind her long blonde hair. What was she thinking… trying to touch a
fucking hallucination? Was she desperate enough for physical contact that she was willing to get it from a manifestation from her own head? She was starting to become freaking pathetic. “Now that you’re dead.”
Alex raised his eyebrow, ignoring her question. “You can touch me, Iz…” She looked away as he scooted closer. “I’m not going to blow away in the wind,” he said softly, his hot breath blowing against her ear.
“Maybe I don’t want to…” Isabel answered shortly, shrinking away from the temptation of letting herself move closer to him… letting him back into her heart. “Maybe
I’m afraid that you will, so why don’t you answer my question?” She moved away to the edge to the bed, her embarrassment and agitation at the situation engulfing her more by the second. She was a damn fool to think that she could handle his being there, close to her again—if he was even really there. His death was still too fresh, too
raw for her to think that this encounter could end in any other way than disastrous, leaving her even more lonely and angrier than she was before.
Alex frowned, his expression closing off from her even more. “Fair enough.” He bowed his head, his expression growing exasperated. He moved back to his corner of the bed as he tried to stammer out an explanation to her earlier question. “I guess it’s like everything and nothing passes through me—” He stopped mid-sentence, the corner of his eyes creasing in concentration from trying to force himself to continue on with something he was no longer comfortable explaining to her. He went on, “Like I can feel the texture of the planets and the stars within my blood vessels, but it’s the void of numbness that surrounds the universe that sort of wins over that overwhelmingly new feeling.”
Isabel closed her eyes, understanding rushing toward her in a wave that would have been strong enough to knock her over if she hadn’t already been sitting down.
It couldn’t be…? “Is it like the universe is cradled within your hands, but every time you want to get close to understanding its power… it slowly dissolves away through your fingertips…?” she asked, opening her eyes as she whipped her head back to stare at him, everything horridly falling into place… A big piece of a complicatedly long puzzle had suddenly been thrown into her lap.
Had she…had death turned him into… her?
“Yeah, it’s kind of like that.” He frowned again, his muscles tightening as he turned to look at her pale face. He leaned back, his eyes widening. “Isabel…” he breathed, his face going ashen white along with her as he began to understand what she was thinking. “Is that how it’s like to be an alie—“
“Isabel, sweetie…” Mrs. Whitman’s soft voice interrupted them from the hallway, breaking Isabel away from Alex’s unfinished question with a jolt. Isabel stared at Mrs. Whitman with even wider eyes, an explanation for her dead son being in his old room on the tip of her tongue, but he was gone… evaporated into thin air, like he had never been there in the first place.
Mrs. Whitman peered at her through the doorway, a mixture of strong apprehension and vague curiosity etched on her prematurely old face. “Did you find what you were looking for, honey?”
She blinked back the fresh wave of tears that were starting to fall down her face, the stupid Nirvana tee still tucked away in her grip. “Yeah,” She said breathlessly, a sad laugh passing her mouth, disbelief and anger once again filling her senses, along with the returning wave of a familiar scent that filled her nostrils. “I think I did…”
TBC...
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A/N:
Untitled Multi-Mix (You and Whose Army?)
This is probably the longest video I've ever made... like ever or will ever make again (hopefully). It tops at about 13mins. 44 secs. and took me about six weeks to finish because I wanted to find the perfect music and the perfect new clips for the video. I also made this video to celebrate the nearing of the end of Act 1 on You and Whose Army?. In it you'll see some of the emotion for what's happening to these characters now, what's going to happen to them in Act 2 and beyond. I really like this video... I think it might be one of my pride and joys, especially Liz's section of the vid.
So fair warning, you're in for a long ride for this video and this story.
