Rating – PG-13
        Disclaimer – Not mine. Don't Sue
        Dedication - To all the Roswellians who didn't give me spoilers!
        Author's Notes - "Cry Your Name" episode tag.
 

        A light breeze floats through the notably barren landscape and even though it’s not cold, I find myself drawing my coat closer to my body as though it might help the chill that lives deep within me.
        I don’t think death is something that anyone is ever prepared for. It’s always a shock, whether it’s sudden or long and drawn out. It seems like it should be less surprising when it does happen, then, like maybe we should live our lives half-expecting one of those calls every moment. But we don’t and somehow it’s always a shock.
        There are piles of half-dead flowers, barely visible in the dark of night, covering his grave and blocking his headstone. I know Alex would have been grateful for the thoughts and prayers and flowers, but that they’re left there half-dead really gets to me and it sets me off crying again. I’ve never been someone who handles tears well and I’ve found myself resorting to them more and more lately.
        It was long past midnight by the time I snuck in the graveyard, but time doesn’t really matter much to me anymore. I haven’t slept in days. I suppose I’m technically trespassing by being here this late at night, but I somehow feel like I have a right to be here, like I have to be. I belong here.
        There are a million things I wish I’d told him and nearly as many that I wish I hadn’t. Just last week we were young and just might live forever. We had survived so much and I had all the time in the world to sort out what I was feeling and to act on it. But life isn’t a reflection of the dreams we make for ourselves. It’s far more arbitrary than that.
        What I’d thought was just the prologue to our story turned out to be the whole novel and even though maybe it’s not my fault that it ended, it is my fault that it ended how it did. I was always so afraid. That’s right, Isabel Evans is admitting to being afraid. Cherish this moment, it probably won’t happen again.
        At first I was afraid of what everybody else would think. He was always a sweetie, but he wasn’t exactly the captain of the football team. Then, I was afraid of myself. That making myself vulnerable would hurt too much. Finally, I was afraid of him. I was afraid that he would see me for who I am a flawed, scared alien child, a freak on this planet and every other. It’s only now I have the courage to admit my fears and let myself feel in spite of them.
        “I really liked you,” I whisper, my face turned to the wind. “I have for a long time.”
        “You understood me, Alex,” I say, looking everywhere but the dead flowers. “You knew all my secrets and you liked me anyhow. You’ll never know what that means to me.
        “Because I never told you,” I finish in a breathless whisper. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, Alex. You deserved to know. You deserved so much, so much more than this. God, you were the best of us. You were the smartest and the nicest and you should have grown up and done great things I can’t even imagine. You don’t belong there, covered in dirt and damn dead-flowers. God, Alex, you’re too alive for that. You were too alive for that.”
        I choke down a sob because I’m tired of crying and if I start, I won’t stop and I have to get through this or I never will.
        “In my dream I told you I loved you. I meant that. I meant it like a friend who would do anything to save the life of someone who means the world to her. But I also meant it the other way. I meant it like, like a woman who can’t help smiling when she sees a man. Like someone whose palms get all sweaty and nervous and whose heart starts to race just thinking about you,” I blurt out.
        “I need you,” I admit, surprising even myself. “And I can’t believe you left me so soon.”
        I glance skyward and watch the distorted stars through my tear-filled eyes for a moment. There’s something about the still of night that gives some measure of anonymity to this all, like I’m free to pour my heart out without caring about who’s listening or what I’m admitting to.
        After a moment the silence gets to me and I look back to his grave. I kneel next to him and toss aside the half-dead flowers to reveal his headstone.
        “Sic transit gloria mundi,” it reads.
        “So passes away the glory of this world,” I whisper to him.
        His father translated it at the funeral. I’d have never known. I’m not smart enough for Latin, but  I’m sure Alex was.
        “You were the best of us,” I murmur, my lips pressed to his cold headstone.
        It’s another thing I never told him, but this one doesn’t matter so much because he would never have believed me anyhow.  Come to think of it, he probably wouldn’t have believed that I’d loved him, either.
        I run my fingers along his name, reading it with my hands, and I can’t hold the tears back anymore. I lie upon the ground and clutch the grass that lies between him and me and the tears flow freely for the first time.
        For a long while there are no sounds but my own sobs and desperate apologies let loose in the still of night. After a time, even those cease and the gentle breeze washes over my body. And it is there, under the shroud of darkness, that I finally sleep.