keepsmiling/Carolyn: So sorry it has been so long, I know you like rapid updates, I like them too trust me when life allows me to oblige.
Isabel does need to clue Alex into the Tess meddling, but will she is rather the question. She is if you recall keeping some things hidden and secret, other things she just doesn’t know anymore, they were erased by her hand in Clovis when she and Alex spent the night (written so long ago…). Well it is obvious she remembers Tess, but if she isn’t “playing the game the same way” then she might be incurring trouble? She’ll just have to find her way to tell him.
mary-mary/Ginger It is poor both of them really, but yeah Alex is definitely having it worse. How would you react if you were told the girlfriend you love more than life itself was cheating on you? And that girlfriend seems to love you so much…. Poor Alex.
Then you asked if she wasn’t pregnant in the past why doesn’t she remember she isn’t now. That is more complicated. I left an A/N before this recently, but the reality is with Michael she is likely NOT pregnant. Duh. Wasn’t then, isn’t now. That is her logic. (Although these dreams are FAR more erotic, involved and convincing) But Alex and she were rather involved a month ago at Michael’s house. Yes, she was partially dressed, bottoms on, and so seems impossible right? But she is an alien, and she doesn’t trust what Tess says about needing the human way.
I hope that clears it up some… Trust me I KNOW what I do with my characters and their every thought is well rehearsed and researched at times. I have to find old chapters and check on my continuity, AND I do. The day they destroyed the school and made out at Michel’s is more the day in question than any dream had this week.
Tharos I wish the muse could keep up like this.. but nope. If Tess is responsible… yeah hurricane central will land on her with all its/their fury. She’d better watch out for sure.
cjsl8ne They finally sat and talked, well Alex seems to have talked in my head at least, we are starting from his POV… This is that conversation.
PML/Peter This really will be quite a talk…. See comments to keepsmiling and Ginger…. Just how do you start this convo? “You know Alex, we were talking about dreams a couple days ago and, well, I’ve been sleeping with Michael…” There is just no good way to start this one.
And yet I’ve given it to you all to sort out with them…ENJOY….
**** ****
Disclaimer: I in no way own the rights to Roswell or anything related to it. All rights belong to Jason Katims, 20th Century Fox, Regency Entertainment, Melinda Metz, WB and UPN. No infringement is intended. I am borrowing their awesome characters, and including my own.
Perhaps in this part and in parts to come I am or will be borrowing some scenes, and I will borrow direct dialog and use altered dialog at times.
Title: Shifting Realities
Author: Mt Gazer/Velvet Skye
Category: CC/ AU
Rating: MATURE- ADULT
Spoilers: Four Square and Max to the Max : ROSWELL
Other Spoiler: Quantum Leap: The Trilogy Episodes of Season 5. Specifically Episodes two and three, (“For Your Love” and “The Last Door” ) A brief synopsis/ SPOILER of these episodes is mentioned.
And to Randy, my dear husband always behind the scenes, and always an assistant in this. I tell him practically every idea that goes through my head. I LOVE YOU!!! And THANK YOU! As always. Shifting lives because of your support.
PML: Peter. This is a permanent spot in recognition of all your assistance. THANK-YOU!!! Shifting Realities is doing well with your attention to details. Thanks for all the help in this. And you definitely gave me some assistance in places.
And finally I will attempt to recap where we’ve been.
RECAP: After Alex learned that Isabel has been with Michael and more than that might be pregnant, he kind of collapsed and then rushed out of the Crashdown. Not feeling too well. He went for a walk with very unsettled thoughts. Isabel is struggling to understand if she might be pregnant, everyone, including Michael is thinking she is. And she has never been sick with these wacky and disturbing kinds of symptoms before, so? On that walk she decided she wasn’t. Now she’s debating how to tell him about Tess.
No Music...
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Shifting Realities
Chapter 30:N
It Was Only a Dream
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Isabel watched Alex slowly spinning side to side as he sat at the bar, she wistfully observed him for a moment deciding how exactly to approach. An idea struck and she smirked as she looked down and nodded. ‘Should work,’ she thought to herself.
Isabel proceeded to blur the lines of modesty as she opened the top buttons on her blouse; black lace peeking from beneath the crisp blue fabric. She used her hands and adjusted “the girls” for maximum enticement. Visible cleavage! Time for the persuasive flirting powers of the Ice Princess.
Steeling herself for the conversation ahead she stealthily slipped out of the employee’s room and settled onto Alex’s lap, straddling his hips, and facing him; before he had realized that she was there.
“Whoa! Isabel.” He said almost a bit too loudly in his sheer surprise as her weight settled onto his thighs. “Hi.” The stool came to a rest.
“You are looking exceptionally radiant today,” he blushed, and tried to avert his eyes from hers. He looked down uncomfortably to be met by “those.” Damn. Where was he supposed to look? He tried to find a comfortable place to gaze as he felt her shifting on his lap. She wasn’t playing fair.
“And you are especially handsome.” She fingered the lapels on his jacket. He was in his Sunday best, left over from Mass. Glossy brown orbs were staring into his. She had his eye contact. He couldn’t look away and so they held each other’s for an immobile moment until she broke the silence. “A penny for your thoughts?”
He almost started to laugh hysterically it would release so much stress, but instead he just held his poker face and stated seriously, “You’d go broke woman.” As he swallowed deeply.
Isabel laughed briefly as her head tilted backwards. Her laughter shaking her body. ‘Stop looking Whitman. Just stop.’ He tried to tell himself. And shaking his head, he quirked a suggestive eyebrow. “Are you
trying to seduce me?” His eyes had settled, ogling her bosom, he couldn’t help himself, hard as he was trying to keep them focused on her face.
She wriggled into his space, “Is it working?” She asked innocently.
‘Oh cut the act.’ He licked his lip, “Yeah it’s working.” He chuckled ruefully while slowly shaking his head. ‘Oh Isabel…’ He blushed at his thoughts, his whole body heating up.
“You seem to be a bit overdressed.” She purred as she pressed her body flush against his and slipped her long arms into the sleeves of his coat as she began to slide it from his body. “This is making you all hot and sweaty.” She pulled his jacket off and placed it on the counter behind them, and then wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Yeah. I’m sur- sure that’s it!” He mumbled turning a brighter shade of crimson.
“And see you can’t even breathe in this thing.” She added as she started to work at the knot at his throat, “You’re turning all red. That just won’t do.” Her nimble fingers unfastened the strip of fabric around his neck.
He flushed even further as his tie joined his jacket on the Crashdown bar. He gasped for air, audibly. All the thoughts in his head evaporated.
“You have enough trouble with these.” She crooned as her slender fingers undid his top two buttons in their customary flirt; she slipped her hand unto his neck and started to kiss him.
Jeff Parker was ready to curtail the PDA, this was a family restaurant after all, but for some reason Liz insisted that he let them continue. That they knew where they were and that they’d keep it clean. He wasn’t so sure, but he decided to trust his daughter’s instincts still keeping a close watch on the two patrons at the same time.
Liz was absolutely fascinated at how they could so openly flirt, when they had such a disastrous situation looming over them that they needed to discuss. But instead of talking about anything Isabel was pulling out all the stops and Alex wasn’t halting her; instead he was playing along with everything she threw at him. They were now openly kissing, on the broken barstool at the corner of her dad’s bar.
What Liz seemed to have forgotten was that they did not have to converse in the traditional manner.
Flashes could be conveyed along the connection and they were currently bombarding each other’s neural circuits with their hopes and dreams that they wished to share. Visions of the life that they wanted and would do everything within their power to make true. So for the time being they reveled in love. Their dreams from the week shoved into the recesses of their minds to be dealt with shortly, but for the immediate moment they needed to connect. To feel the other’s love, to draw strength and stamina from each other to compose for the conversation about to occur. The one that had the power to change everything.
They pulled back and stared at each other seemingly reading each other’s mind, as they nervously overran each other, each awkwardly attempting to begin their confession but neither was hearing the other.
Alex interrupted, “Normally, Isabel, I am all for ladies first, chivalry and all that. But today I must protest.”
Isabel giggled, “Must protest? Really? Who uses that in normal everyday English?” She giggled again.
His hands on her waist he looked deeply into her eyes. “I’m serious. Isabel.”
He was so earnest; she bit her lip and nodded for him to continue.
“OK.” He sighed, “there is just no way to sugar coat this and so I won’t. You have been having dreams this week.” He jumped right in.
She swallowed. And nodded her head.
“Dreams that may or may not involve sex with Michael.”
“It’s not what you think… “ She shook her head.
Alex continued, “May or may not involve you actually having his child.” He placed his hands on her waist, letting his fingertips graze her stomach.
“No Alex. I’m … I’m not,” she protested herself. “It was just those dr…” She was shocked when he interrupted her yet again, his finger on her lips shushing her.
“Maybe Isabel…” He placed a tender hand on her lower stomach. “There is a likelihood that you are pregnant; and it’s just something we’re going to have to deal with.” He deeply sighed, holding her rapt attention. “But I wasn’t talking about your baby Isabel. I was talking about mine.”
“You don’t- have a baby.” Isabel uttered in confusion.
“And you need to hear me out. What I have to say if of the utmost importance, and is one of those things that’s going to come out how it comes out and make what sense it makes. And if you interrupt me, I will make sure you don’t do that again. But then you’ll learn everything by seeing it, and I think it would just be better to hear it from me first so that doesn’t happen. Ok?”
She bit her lip and nodded silently. She rarely saw this side to him.
“Whatever you’re going through, for me it’s just as bad, possibly even worse.” He paused for a silent beat. “I got someone pregnant.”
She gasped, and bit her lip harder. And watched him.
“I have a kid out there… “out there”, (he pointed to the sky in the alien method of inferring the home planet). “I don’t know a thing about your world, or where you are from. And I could make up any number of things with this overactive imagination, (he pointed to his head) but this…. There is no way I would know
anything about this…” He reached behind him to the bar and grabbed Michael’s art book where Isabel had placed it when she climbed into his lap.
He opened to the page of the alien lovemaking displayed in brilliant light. “I did this. How would I know what this is, what this feels like unless it were real? I did THIS with that woman, and a child was conceived Isabel. My child I guess. So yes. I do. I do have a baby Isabel. An alien son…”
Her large brown eyes just blinked owlishly, as she watched him, head tilted in question…
He prattled on, “It’s like that episode of Quantum Leap, you know how Dr. Sam Beckett leaps into other people’s lives fixing what once was wrong. He is there but not, and everyone he encounters sees the person he leaps into but it’s just a projection somehow?”
Isabel nodded confusedly. She NEVER knew what Alex was going to say next…
“But there was a series of three episodes where he kept leaping into this one girl’s life… but in one of them he leaped in, in the middle of sex, and well there is more of Sam there than just a projection apparently because he got that girl pregnant. She had his baby, Sam’s. Later she, his brilliant daughter, was working on project Quantum Leap when he started his whole time jumping thing… That’s been my life this week. I’ve been quantum leaped. I mean I wasn’t my self, but yet I was, if that makes any sense at all. Because whoever I was, he was me, he had my personality, my humor, my sense of duty. And one of those nights when I woke up I wasn’t even fully human, but that could have been that twilight state between awake and asleep I suppose. I mean it had started with a heavy alien make out on the dream realm with you so…” he babbled on with barely a breath taken.
“Dreams …” she found his finger on her lips again.
“No! It’s more than that Isabel. You don’t get it!!!” A couple tears released themselves. Alex’s voice started to crack. “Because it was all too real. I can tell you the girl’s name. Kaleira or something to that effect… it’s not easily translated. But more than that, I know what she looks like. Feels like, her skin was cool to the touch, smooth, like a dolphin. What she tastes like, Oh God intoxicating, heady spicy. I can still taste her on my tongue.” He wandered into his thoughts for a moment reminiscing.
Isabel’s possessiveness got a rise out of that declaration as her eyes narrowed and she made a low hissing sound under her breath.
He continued, “Smells like, a little like cinnamon. I can close my eyes and remember it all. If it were a dream it would fade… this was real. I had sex with someone else Isabel. Hot alien sex mind you, nothing human that I can recall.” He wiped a few more tears as he kept rattling off his monologue.
“So you’ll see how and why the dreams were messing me up when we sort of talked about them on Friday.” He shook his head wryly… “But they were
dreams, things I COULD ignore if I had to. Shaking his head, “That is, until Maria showed me this book. That’s when I had flashbacks. I was reliving those moments. I think I sort of collapsed, but not for the reasons they were thinking. Not because you and Michael shared some dreams, but because of my own... The question I was asking myself was if she could truly be pregnant, and if so what was I to do now?” He sniffled. He opened the incriminating book back up. “This is called a bonding, it is a disused form of intimacy that binds two people’s souls together. Permanently. How do I know this Isabel?
Why do I know this? … The energy is so intense that it cannot be contained and it flares outward from the lovers… it’s a physical effect that occurs when the souls are fused as one. And we almost did it.”
She kept staring at him. Watching him with growing concern, for both of them and what this meant for their relationship, as his emotions continued to crack and fall further with his tale.
“Well did you hear me?” he questioned. “We,” he pointed between them, “almost bonded.” He shook his head. “That day at Michael’s … or maybe we did. I don’t really know anymore. Don’t know what I can actually trust to be real or not… Which I why I say there is still the likelihood that you might be pregnant. And if you are, there is still the chance that it is my child too … because Isabel, I felt some of the same things with you that I did with her. I had you to reference from…”
Her voice cracked as she held his forearms tightly in her hands. “No! Impossible! It’s not real! Alex.” She demanded, “It can’t be real. Or we can’t be together anymore. And I can’t lose you. I didn’t come all this way to lose you…” Her hand stroked his cheek, the pad of her thumb wiping a tear.
“I know but… but what happened to me this week was real, and there is a baby out there that I was a part of his conception, somehow. And I’m never going to know him. I’m not the type of guy who would abandon a child, who won’t take responsibility. But I’m never even going to see my son. Oh my God! What am I gonna do Isabel?”
Isabel watched as Alex crumbled under the weight of his exhausting confession.
And then he looked up into her damp coffee colored eyes and realized what he had just said. He swallowed. “I can not believe I just said all of that, I told you about sex with another girl, like you weren’t even my girlfriend. Oh God. I need to shut up now. Whatever is coming out is nothing I have any control over anymore. And I can’t. I can’t stop talking. DO you think Max can heal me or something?” He noticed that her lip was quivering, and she was pulled back on his lap, not flush against his body as she had been. “Oh God, because, because I can see I am losing you and you are more precious to me than anything and… I didn’t mean to cheat on you Isabel… I had no control over …”
She couldn’t listen to him anymore, it was all too much and she was about to start openly crying if she didn’t change the course of this conversation, so she attacked his mouth with hers. A deeply satisfying French-kiss she initiated, the kind of kiss Michael gives to Maria to shut her up…
But she ran into his memories.
Isabel pulled away from the kiss, stunned, blinking, processing. She took a couple of audible swallows as she drew away, “Excuse me Alex. “ She said while tears were pooling in her eyes, about to burst the dam. “But. I need to go have a little emotional crisis of my own.” Shaking her head as a couple of tears trailed casually down her worried face. She hopped off his lap and ran into the nearest room.
She’d seen her, the alien girl, in Alex’s mind. She was imprinted on his soul somehow, his thoughts anyways. ‘Who was she? What did this mean?’ Isabel paced in the employee’s room, trying to sort her thoughts, trying to make any sense of what Alex had confessed.
*** ***
Alex despondently leaned forward placing his head on his arms at the bar, silent sobbing shaking his shoulders as he let all his emotions pour out. ‘What could he do? How could he fix this?’ He’d cheated on Isabel and broken her heart. He’d seen the tears on her cheeks as she ran. Tears that he was responsible for. God how he hated himself right now.
He sat there sobbing, unaware of his surroundings until Maria swooped in, just shortly after Isabel had stepped out. She placed her hand on his shoulder and handed him a napkin.
When he looked up she asked if she could get him anything, if there was anything he wanted.
He stared at her morosely and stated, “I will take one life on the rocks.”
And before she could respond he added, “Oh wait… I’m already there.” He looked mournfully at his blonde friend, and with a heavy sigh added, “I’d like my life back. Think you can arrange that Maria? If not. Just go. I’m not in the mood to talk to
you right now.”
“Me? What did I do? I merely told you the truth.” Maria countered.
“The truth as you saw it, yes. But there is so much more going on. This thing with Isabel is just the tip of the iceberg and I’d appreciate it if you left us alone for awhile. We have some serious things to work through. And you are not making it any easier.”
“Now you are mad at me?” Maria was confused, she didn’t see how any of this could be HER fault.
“I’m hurt. Hurt that you didn’t hold you tongue. This is not your problem Maria. It’s mine, and Isabel’s, and we need to be able to discuss it in our own way and our own time. It was not your secret to tell.”
“Considering Michael is involved, its not just
your problem. I think I did you a favor. I always knew that Michael could slip, but I never thought it would be with HER. But it’s better that we know now before we get too involved in this, whatever it is.” She waved her hands around, “And at least you also now know what a two-timing bitch your girlfriend Isabel is…”
Compelled to defend, Alex stood suddenly, abruptly enough for Maria to recoil back.
She continued her diatribe, “… Once they stray, taste that forbidden fruit there is just no going back. You ought to let them …” and before she knew what had happened his finger was on her lips pressed forcefully against them, as he swiftly came into her space and loomed over her, his face, grim.
She could sense his anger hidden beneath the surface even though he spoke softly and evenly. “You are my best friend Maria and one I love like a sister, but I will ask you to kindly hold your tongue. Because right now you have NO idea what you are talking about! You could not possibly begin to understand the situation between me and Isabel, if there even still
is a me and Isabel. And know this, whatever happened between her and Michael was not by choice. Now please if you do not mind, BACK- OFF!” And with that he released her and sat back down at the bar. Hoping she would comply.
He ignored her attempts to call his name a couple of times, didn’t even say thank you when she brought him an orange soda on the rocks. She finally gave up. Maria was stunned. Alex had just shut her out. Alex? Sure she’d been shut out by people who were annoyed with her before and even outright ignored by others. But never like this, and never by her best friend. What was up with Alex? He cared far too much for Isabel, and they always say love is blind. But she didn’t want to get his dander up again. If she never saw Alex act so cold again it would be too soon. So she stepped off to find Isabel. Maybe she could still get some answers.
Isabel had started her spiral as she paced in the break room, pondering on all the events of this week, her own as well as Alex’s. She just couldn’t believe that it was real. It couldn’t be real or they could never be together, That much she knew, that much at the same time she also now feared. He really could remember everything about his alien love affair. When she felt the tears begin to fall without permission she exited into the bathroom and shut the door. To have a crisis of her own.
“Listen here!” She demanded furiously of the sky. “I don’t want to fight you for him. I don’t even know
how to fight you for him. But know this, if this is a war saved for the dream realm, I WILL meet you there. The dream realm is MY DOMAIN!. And I WILL WIN!! I just want you gone. Do you hear me? GONE! You don’t belong in my Alex!!! And I am
not going to let you into his head again!” Her anger gave way to panicked gasps for air. “Oh God…” She swallowed thickly. “Tess.”
She thought through that and realized that this was different somehow, not Tess, not the same influence, but influence nonetheless.
“No.” she said while shaking her head, “This isn’t Tess. This is somebody else.” That thought was brutally sobering. “Someone who is specifically messing with Alex. Who are you?” She ordered of the quiet. “What do you want with MY Alex. Because I’m going to tell you this, he’s no one to you. No one you would want, or need. But he’s everything to me. He’s MY everything. My heart. My soul. My very reason for existence. And I can’t lose him. I
won’t lose him!!!” Isabel barked through gritted teeth as she issued the declaration for war. It remained silent, no one heeded the call, so she’d wait for tonight and make sure to be in deep connection with Alex. This other woman would rue the day she was hatched.
She leaned in to look at the mirror, watching the lines on her face range between jealousy and possessive anger, striving to hold in her newly formed large irate tears. Right now she was at war with an unseen enemy, an enemy that had overstepped the bounds. You don’t touch Alex. Or you deal with the wrath that is Isabel. Recomposing, Isabel used her powers to repair her cosmetics, especially around her eyes, since crying has a tendency to ruin makeup.
A knock at the door and she heard Maria’s soft voice, “Isabel? Are you ok?”
The flash of rage at her unseen enemy was unleashed, “
I want you… to leave us… the Hell… ALONE!” She growled as she slammed her palms violently into the door to shove back the offender. The door rippled under her contact, as if Isabel had just hit a wall of water, and a second later her hands went though the surface. She drew them in quickly and stared at it in awe, blinking rapidly.
Maria, standing at the door, felt its solidity shift as she was pressed against it straining to listen to Isabel, offering her assistance. When she inadvertently touched Isabel’s hands through the closed door, she jerked away in alarm.
And stood transfixed as the reality of the door and adjacent walls undulated before her very eyes. Maria jumped to the side of the bathroom door in the employees’ room, watching as it rippled and became all but transparent. As if it was made of water. The effect spread along the walls and through the lockers, making the gunmetal grey paint and the steel they were made from look molten, before it became a haze. The lockers then resumed normal as the pantry shelf momentarily warped as the effect kept creeping outwards through the room. She hopped when she felt the floor beneath her feet also roll.
The liquid effect didn’t linger at any one point but it wrinkled and rippled like water off of a pond into which a large rock had been thrown.
Maria reached into her alien head apron, searching for the right oil for this situation. Something, anything, to calm her down because… because, the entire room had just become a wave, a literal wave, of energy. And the effects were the strongest where Isabel had hit the door. Who was she kidding? There was no right oil for this, she clanked the little vials, reading the labels frantically, landing on Eucalyptus. That should work; she fussed with the tiny top as she uncapped it and started to sniff heartily.
She could still see vaguely through the translucent opening, Isabel being silhouetted as she fell to her knees her hands pulling from the surface. And as her hands pulled from the surface, so too the ripples began to fade and reality resumed normal. She knew that the aliens could molecularly change things, but to warp the very nature of reality? This was a little scary to say the least. She took another sniff of her latest purchase. She hoped her friends realized how much of her money was now going to calming aromatherapy products! And it wasn’t just Isabel and her little turn the world into water trick that had Maria needing it. It was also Alex and his indifference, as well as the usual/unusual troubles with Michael. She softly apologized at the door and made a hasty retreat into the main dining room which had not experienced the liquid effect of Isabel’s tantrum.
Simultaneously:
Isabel ricocheted as the dam broke; she slid to floor in a mode of self-deprecation. “It’s my fault… I should have never slept this week! Never! Oh my God!!! What have I done? …”
TBC…..
A/N And we are deep in the middle of some huge school projects and so, I don’t honestly know when I will get to it again, but I really wanted to get this one done. Because it drives it forward, and I have but one goal really to move this thing FORWARD…
My son just got Straight A’s for his first semester, with THE HARDEST teacher. That’s where my RL is going. LOL