Title: Sleeping With Ghosts
Author: RavenWolf
Pairing: Alex/Isabel
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Departure, the end of S2
Disclaimer: Like I would have killed Alex off.
Summary: Isabel knows that Alex is not gone.
Immediately after Alex died, Max had become quiet and sympathetic. He tried not to speak to Isabel, which was good for both of them, because Isabel didn’t want his grief, and she didn’t want to share her own. About a month after Tess left, Max suggested quietly that she should go out with them tonight. Maybe even bring ‘somebody’. Isabel had snarled at him and he’d left her room with his metaphorical tail between his legs.
She never used to snarl. She was cold and she was bitchy and she was the Ice Queen of Roswell High, but she’d never been outright aggressive or violent. She was now, and any of her friends outside their circle had drifted away. Actually, more like run, throwing words like ‘psycho’ and ‘bitch’ over their shoulder as they went.
Strangely, she didn’t mind anymore. They could say what they wanted, but they could never affect her. She was better than them. She could read their dreams at night and their thoughts, by more mundane means, during the day. All of them were shallow. All of them were grating. And none of them were worth the trouble.
She slipped into Liz’s dream one night, trying to bore herself to sleep. It was only a month or two after Alex’s death, and she watched with horrified eyes as Tess took an axe and hit Alex again and again and again, blood spurting everywhere, and Liz crying in a corner, seemingly unable to move. Isabel woke up from that one with the tears still wet on her face.
“It’s too hard without you, Alex.”
“Shhh,” he came and sat down on the bed, and began to stroke her hair. “You’ll be alright,” he said. “You’re strong. Plus, I wasn’t all that big of a factor in your life to begin with.”
She shook her head violently. “That’s not true! I-I love you, Alex.”
Alex suddenly looked very sad, and brushed a kiss across her forehead. “Loved, Isabel. Loved. Past tense.”
Isabel sobbed and fell back on the bed. “Just go away then! Just...god you’re ruining my life!!” She threw an arm over her eyes. “Why won’t you just go?” She said more softly.
“Because you still need me. And remember, please, that I’m not really here. It’s easier for both of us.”
She looked up at him with her tear-stained face. “How is it easier?” She asked incredulously.
“It just is, Izzy. You have to trust me on this, okay?” He said tenderly, brushing his knuckles against her cheek. She knew she felt it. She knew it had to be real. She’d never heard voices in her whole life. This couldn’t be just a...figment of her imagination.
She turned into Alex and kissed him violently and aggressively. He tasted like strawberries and cream. She pushed him back on the bed, and ripped his shirt open. “Alex, Alex, Alex,” she chanted to herself as she undid his belt-buckle. “I love you Alex. I love you. I know you‘re here, because you‘re touching me and I‘m touching you and this can be real, Alex, I love you.” Alex said nothing, but looked at her with sad, sad eyes. “Alex,” she breathed, pressing her lips to his again.
She unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. She slid her skirt up around her hips and brought herself down onto him. But instead of the pinching pain/pleasure she’d expected, she was left with an empty nothing, sitting on the bed.
“It doesn’t work like that, Izzy. You know that. I would have loved to have been your first... But I’m dead now, Isabel. Give yourself to someone else. Someone who loves you.”
“Alex, no! I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I only wanted you! Please...” she started to cry. Her hand passed right through him. She couldn’t taste the strawberries and cream on her tongue, and she couldn’t feel his fingers.
“There is no Alex, Isabel. It’s just you in here.”