Author: Lauren
Author Email: PaceysLilMcPhee@aol.com
Author's Note: All info included with first chapter
Chapter 3/?
After Isabel walked out the door, Alex and Max began to head for the door to follow her. Liz stopped them.
"Let me go after her," she said. The two guys looked at her and Max nodded. Liz walked to the door, closing it behind her. She walked slowly down the stairs to the Crashdown where she found Isabel at the pod squad's usual booth. She had her head in her hands and didn't look anything like Liz knew Isabel Evans to be. She didn't have her high and mighty Ice Princess act displayed like she usually did – she looked vulnerable and hurting like any other normal human being would be if in her place.
"Isabel?" Liz said quietly as she approached the booth. Isabel didn't look up but she did respond.
"Please just tell me if I'm hallucinating."
"I don't think so."
Liz took a seat across from Isabel as she looked up at Liz. "But he was…he was! We saw it. Max tried to help him and he couldn't. So that just can't be him."
"Isabel, that wasn't him. I'm almost positive about that."
Isabel looked suspicious. "Not him? Who could it have been then?"
"I don't know, but that's what I got everyone over here for. So we can find out," Liz explained. She stood up and looked to Isabel once again. After a moment, Isabel stood up as well and they walked back up the stairs to where everyone was waiting and conversing. They walked in to see Kyle asking Alex a question while Maria stood with her arms crossed across her chest and her eyes fixed glaring at Kyle.
"…the song we sang out in the woods…you remember what it was?"
Alex nodded and answered, "Yeah, American Pie."
Kyle had a look of disbelief on his face. Maria continued to glare at Kyle as she said, trying to keep her voice down and only half succeeding, "See?! It really is Alex. Do you believe him and us now?"
"I think he just wanted to be sure, Maria. I mean, you know as well as I do that we've met the skins and after that I don't blame anyone for being slightly suspicious. I'm sure Alex understands that," Max said.
Alex looked to Maria and nodded. "I remember when Nasedo was able to turn into Agent Pierce…believe me, I'm suspicious of me at this point."
After Alex's statement they finally all noticed Liz and Isabel's entrance. They all looked at Isabel, concerned after her recent exit. All but Alex knew what she was like after he had supposedly died earlier that year. Although Isabel didn't know Max knew, he knew what she was like during the night. Most of the night she didn't sleep, she just cried, trying to stifle her heaving sighs in an attempt to control her tears, in her pillow. When she did sleep, she slept fitfully; never going through a period of sleep without experiencing a terrible nightmare. She was like that for awhile and Max had tried to get her to talk to him, particularly in the morning, right after one of her dreadful sleepless nights but she would have none of it. And the girls knew better than any of the others how close she was getting to Alex during the prom right before he died. They had been so happy for Alex, and Isabel too, that she was letting down her guard for him. Who they thought was Alex at the time was so happy and told two of his girls all about it.
Isabel had felt horrible afterwards. Imagine, waiting all that time and then right when the person you think you could love, maybe forever, was one day just gone just like that. Everyone knew up until this day she was still trying to get through the tragedy of the supposed death of Alex. And now that he had suddenly reappeared…they weren't sure how she'd react. They all waited to find out.
Isabel looked back at everyone else because they knew the reason they were all looking at her. She just smiled a small smile. "Don't stop wherever you were in trying to figure all this out because I showed up."
"Well some of these guys were paranoid," Maria began when Max interrupted.
"But rightfully so," he said.
Maria shrugged, "Sure. They were paranoid that this person wasn't really Alex. And now that Kyle has questioned Alex he has decided that it is in fact Alex." She looked at all the guys. "Which I was trying to tell them, I knew all along."
Isabel just smiled. Maria was a trip. She had had the same reservations that Alex wasn't really, well, Alex. She figured that if everyone else accepted that this was Alex that she should and would too. She thought that she would feel better about it once she got a chance to actually talk to Alex. She wasn't sure what she wanted to say but she knew that she needed to talk to him. Even if half of her didn't want to.
"So now that we agree that this is the real Alex as we know him, who was the fake Alex that returned from Sweden a couple of months ago?" Liz asked.
"Whoever it was, they planted information in his computer for you or one of us to find after his death," Max pointed out.
"And why would they want us to think Alex was dead?" Liz thought aloud.
"Don't forget Tess, the little skank. How would she fit into all of this?" Maria questioned.
Everyone looked around the room at each member of their group. These were all questions that they would have to answer in order for them to get to the bottom of this situation.