TIES THAT BIND: POSTCARD
AUTHOR: Aesop
DISCLAIMER: The characters aren't mine, and I earn no profit by writing this.
SUMMARY: Six people left Roswell, but they still have ties to that town. Ties they are unwilling to sever.
AUGUST 21, 2002
Jesse Ramirez sighed at the stack of files on his desk. It hadn't taken his new employers more than a week to bury him in paperwork. As head of their litigation department, he had a great many perks, but they were often outweighed by the responsibilities involved. The expectations of his new boss were high, sometimes unattainable.
He welcomed it. Jesse threw himself into his work, into various company activities, anything that would take his mind off of Isabel and hole in his life where she had been. The only problem was that such thoughts refused to be buried. He missed his wife terribly.
Before leaving Roswell, he and his in-laws and the Parkers had made arrangements to stay in touch and share any information that came their way. Amy Delucca had been in shock over the entire business and had wanted no part of it. Valenti had agreed to keep tabs on the investigation as best he could. So far, Isabel and the others had managed to stay under the radar, avoiding the people that Valenti had confirmed were still looking for them.
It was a depressing line of thought, and one that Jesse tried not to pursue very often. When he found himself thinking about it, he just pushed the thoughts aside and worked all the harder. So it was with an odd mixture of depression and enthusiasm that he began working his way through the stack of legal briefs, motions, and correspondence.
Almost half an hour passed before he found the envelope from Wainsborough and Associates. The name wasn't familiar to him, and as far as he knew none of the lawyers in his department had any cases with connections in Kansas City. It was a welcome diversion and he allowed the normal curiosity to build to speculation. What could it be? He opened the legal sized envelope with a deft swipe of the letter opener one of his colleagues had given him as a gag on finding out he was from Roswell. The handle ended in a large, bald head with big black eyes. Jesse wondered if it was masochism that made him hang onto it.
His curiosity turned to confusion when he scanned the first page of the enclosed document. The first page seemed to be nothing but boilerplate from half a dozen different sources strung together without rhyme or reason. The second page was blank. He flipped to the next page and found the folded paper. It was taped to the third page and folded into three sections. There was a single word on the upper section, written in a familiar hand.
ALIVE
His hand trembled as he pulled loose the note and lifted the top section. Another word was written on the next section in the same hand.
FREE
A sigh of relief escaped him. That was good. The method of communication would have seemed ridiculously covert and melodramatic if not for-.
He finished opening the note and lost his train of thought. There was a note here as well.
AND MISSING YOU
It was good to know, truly. Jesse was relieved beyond words. He just wished that the picture of his nude wife lying on a bed, head propped on one hand with a come-hither look on her face made being apart from her easier.
