Regret (CC, FF/ Mature) 1/1 07/11/2011

Finished Canon/Conventional Couple Fics. These stories pick up from events in the show. All complete stories from the main Canon/CC board will eventually be moved here.

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PML
Obsessed Roswellian
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Regret (CC, FF/ Mature) 1/1 07/11/2011

Post by PML »

Regret

Author- PML

Disclaimer- Roswell is not mine and no infringement is intended.

Category- CC FF- Inferno challenge

Rating- Mature

Summary- This story starts out after the end of the series, There was no attempt to kill the hybrids during Graduation, otherwise this follows canon. Isabel and Jesse accept a transition to Boston. It is a participant in the Inferno challenge from Roswell Heaven. Gluttony as the Deadly Sin for this story. Don’t expect a happy ending.

Regret-

Isabel let the water sluice along her clean body. She was delaying the inevitable. Enjoying the beautiful bathroom she and Jesse had installed when they had renovated this house.

The house they had built when he had made full partner at his law firm fifteen years ago. As much as she loved it, she would not fight to keep it. It was too large, too full of memories.

It would likely be sold when he divorced her.

He was on his way over with the papers now.

Oh, he didn’t know that she knew. Probably didn’t realize that she knew everything. That she knew about his second family. His mistress. And her children.

It was the children, Isabel knew that were the reason Jesse was finally divorcing her. He had always wanted a family. Always wanted kids.

So had Isabel.

They had tried. For years they had tried. But there was no way they could use fertility treatments, not with her alien biology.

Adoption was an option of course, but Jesse wanted someone of his own flesh and blood. So that too got put off.

And he began to cheat.

Perhaps the damage to her had been when she had nearly died from a gunshot wound in Roswell all those years ago. Or perhaps they simply were not compatible.

But Liz had born Max a son before they both had disappeared. And Maria claimed that Haley was Michael’, conceived before that stupid motorcycle accident had killed him.

Isabel sighed and shut off the shower. She grabbed a towel and dried herself off. She paused looking at herself in the mirror. Outside of her breasts sagging just a little, she still looked very similar to what she had back in Roswell. Still looked like she was in her twenties. Her appearance if anything was more refined, more beautiful.

Jesse certainly wasn’t divorcing her over lost looks. That in truth was probably why he had resisted as long as he had. Having her on his arm looked good. And she had helped him in his business.

She wasn’t sure how that aspect was going to change. Would their business relationship survive divorce?

Isabel highly doubted it.

She reached for the blow-dryer and stopped. She reached up and touched her hair. Once it had been instinctual to simply use her powers to dry it. But those powers had always frightened Jesse. Had always worried him that they would be found out.

And so Isabel had stopped. She had spent all of her childhood resisting her brother on that regard, but for the love she had for her husband she had seriously curtailed any use.

You never could be certain who was watching.

Did it really matter anymore?

Isabel closed her eyes and remembered. She channeled a tiny touch and felt as an old part of her came alive once more. She opened her eyes and looked in the mirror.

And gasped.

For the hair that greeted her was not only dry, but the long golden tresses of her youth. The hair she had given up so very long ago. They symbol of her dedication to a new life.

She reached up and ran her hands through her hair. She couldn’t stop a couple of tears from falling.

Was this what she now would have to face? A return of the old Isabel Evans now that Isabel Ramirez was being replaced by some pathetic tart with working ovaries?

She looked into her mirrored eyes and thought. She could fight this. She knew she could. She could force him into keeping her.

But why when the love had long since faded. Had turned into merely convenience backed by safety.

Isabel shook her head and walked briskly into her bedroom, walked to the closets full of beautiful clothes. Many of which she had never worn. Rows of shoes she might have worn once or twice. Handbags by the score.

This is what she had come to. In her loneliness, in her need for something to justify her existence she had turned to what she had when she had been a frightened teen.

Shopping.

She looked around at all the pretty things and thought, ’What a waste.’

This is what she had sopped her tears and fears with all those times when her husband had searched for the woman to bear his children. This was what she had consoled herself with on those nights when she had wanted someone to love her. When she had wanted someone to treat her like they actually cared.

But with Michael dead and Max missing, where could Isabel have gone? She had made her choice, foolishly as it now seemed and was stuck with it.

And so she had stayed. Stayed the course and let her impulses salve her bleeding soul.

But jewelry and purses and beautiful clothes could never fill that gap. She had always needed more. More than she could possibly ever use.

Even now she could feel the desire to leave the home and to go shopping. To pretend for an afternoon that the unfolding reality was actually happening. That she would soon be divorced and that he would marry her. Marry her nemesis.

He had already picked out the ring. Had already set the date.

Some of her powers had not faded from disuse. The flashes came no matter how hard she had tried to still them. She had always known about his infidelity.

She had even been willing to allow it, because she knew very well what drove it. Well partly drove it.

So she had stayed and accepted this. Accepted safety and things.

And was still empty.

She was surrounded by clothes, by beautiful things. But nothing that had came to her out of love. Nothing that had not been a bribe.

She closed her eyes and wept in regret for her wasted life.

A memory rose up in her. There was one thing she still had from those days when she had known those who had truly loved her.

She opened the tiny jewelry box. In it was the restored pendant that had been shipped to her the day Max and Liz had disappeared. It had a note left with it. To wear it only when she was ready to accept her destiny.

To wear it only when she was tired of pretending.

Isabel looked at it.

Yes.

That time was now.

She placed it around her neck and waited.

She giggled slightly. She had been foolish in thinking that something spectacular could happen. That the wonders of her youth could truly….

She heard something and looked up.

There was a man staring back at her. His gaze was appraising, liking what he was seeing.

Isabel was immediately aware of her nakedness, one hand covering her sex while her other arm shielded her breasts.

He smiled up at her. “So are you finally ready? I expected you long before this, but then both of us have a stupid and stubborn streak.”

“Who are you and what do you think you are doing here?”

The man smiled, “You know who I am, my love. I tried to end this travesty before it started. So long ago.” He laughed ruefully, “I can no longer promise you a palace or a place to rule by my side.”

“Khivar!” Now Isabel wished she had practiced with her powers. That she knew how to attack and defend. There was a part of her that did know, had known all along, but she had long since buried Vilandra. Long since buried the part of her that had made her different from all of her friends.

She needed those skills and talents now.

“In the flesh, or rather in the projection. This is all in your head, all triggered by the necklace. The one that Max let me send you when I resigned.”

“You? You power hungry monster resigned? I don’t believe it!” Isabel was wandering around, looking for some kind of weapon. But all that were here were the pretty but useless things she had bought to fill the emptiness.

Khivar laughed, “Well, some force was involved. But it didn’t go entirely your brother’s way. I did have terms in my surrender. One of them was this. That I could be the one to offer you a way home. To spend with me if you wish, or to go to your brother and his consort’s Court.” His gaze was intense, “I want you to go with me. I love you, Vilandra.”

“My name is Isabel!”

Khivar smiled, “The name doesn’t matter. Who you are is the same.” He sighed as he looked around. “I never thought you could be bought. I am glad I didn’t know that twenty years ago. I would have used that and possibly won against your brother.” His voice turned grim, “Things would have been much worse for all of us then.”

Her eyes flared with anger, “I have never been bought!”

Khivar’s tone was light and mocking, “And all these baubles? Do they truly serve you well? Can you really wear eighty pairs of shoes?”

“What right do you have to tell me anything, your hands drenched with the blood of innocents!”

Khivar sighed, “I have done things… Things that can never be taken back. But the one that I regret most was the accident that lead to your death. I would do anything to take that back. To have you in my arms again. In my greed and pride I thought it would be enough to rule, to bring peace and happiness to all the races of Antar. To bring in reality the promises I whispered in your ears, those easy words…. Things that proved so very hard to make real. More because of what happened to you, but,” Khivar laughed bitterly, “I doubt it would have proved better with you at my side. If Zan was moving too fast, I was trying to cram generations of change into a lifetime. And I failed.”

A part of her could feel Khivar’s pain. She had known him. Had loved him.

She looked around her. What did she truly have here? Even if she won big in the divorce, the money wouldn’t truly bring her happiness. She had nothing. Just things.

“My brother? He is there?”

Khivar nodded, “In the end it was the only way. Both he and his human consort and their children now live on Antar. It was the only thing that could stop the war. He did ask you, but you were so happy with your life in Boston, he didn’t press. He asked me not to press too hard, to let you decide on your own. Something about both of us being tyrants to you in the past.” He smiled, “Will you come?”

“What do I need to do?”

“Give me a kiss. A single kiss and we will be off to Antar.”

-----
No one ever truly understood what happened to Isabel Ramirez. Forensics did determine that she had died of suffocation. And initially it was thought that the husband might have had a hand in the murder.

Circumstances surrounding her death even brought the case through a Grand Jury. But while there was enough for a trial, there were questions. Questions that ultimately let Jesse Ramirez retain his freedom.

First was her altered biochemistry. Both sides produced experts trying to explain away the differences and there was some thought that she had been subtly poisoned.

But the fact that her lungs had shown signs of vacuum exposure, the sort usually seen in the few accidents in space. The air had literally been pulled from her body through her mouth. While it was not impossible for such a device to be rigged, there was also the fact that there were no signs of struggle.

There was not enough proof to convict him. Even in the court of public opinion, he did not truly suffer. Isabel was portrayed as a woman with more money than sense. Cruel to those beneath her and obsessed with the trappings of wealth.
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