What the Heart Wants

Reading Time: 6 Minutes

Title: What the Heart Wants
Author: Keira Marcos
Series: Nature Provides
Series Order: 4
Fandom: 9-1-1
Relationship: Isabel Diaz/OFC
Genre:  Romance, Sentinel Fusion, Femslash
Warnings:  Discussion-homophobia
Word Count: 1,535
Summary:  Isabel Diaz grapples with the idea of having the Sentinel she rejected decades ago in her life.

* * * *

The only reason she hadn’t turned her phone off completely was that she wanted to be sure that her grandson could reach her if needed. Isabel took a deep breath and declined her son’s phone call. She had nothing to say to Ramon at the moment. He’d taken his wife home, but the situation had degraded due to Helena’s militant desire to take Christopher. She’d not allow that under any circumstances and had made that clear to Ramon. There was more than one way to neutralize her daughter-in-law, and she was more than willing to use them all to keep her grandson and great-grandson safe.

A cup of tea slid into place in front of her, and she took a deep breath.

“I can go if you wish.”

“Stop offering to leave,” Isabel said shortly. “It would just make us both miserable if I said yes, and I’ve been tempted to do it just out of spite.”

Jetta laughed a little and sat down at the table. She cupped her own tea with both hands. “Regret is hard to manifest in these circumstances. If we’d insisted on being together, your family wouldn’t exist as they are. You clearly love them all very much—even your son.”

“I do love him, but I can’t tolerate his enablement of his wife,” Isabel murmured. “Helena is deeply selfish, and what she wants is more important than anything else. She doesn’t care how much stress or pain she causes as long as she gets what she wants. I cautioned Ramon against marrying her and had to threaten them with legal action so I could teach Eddie as a child. I’m glad that I did, no matter how hostile things became over the years, because he wouldn’t have had the skills he needed to deal with the situation he was presented with when he met his Sentinel.”

“They’ve made a lovely family,” Jetta said and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry to be such a mess myself. I’ve done myself no favors.”

“You’ve every right to mourn your Guide, Jetta,” Isabel said warily. “Even if you chose to do it in a cabin in Big Sur in the middle of nowhere like a savage.”

Jetta laughed sadly. “I do miss him, but not as I should. I left because I hated the pretense of the situation. People expected me to be devastated by his loss, and I was….” She cleared her throat and brushed tears from her face. “I was relieved, and I hate myself for it. He was a good man and never once, in all of the years we were together, demanded anything from me. He accepted the terrible situation we’d both been pressured into and treated me as a dear friend every single moment of our lives until the accident.”

Isabel reached out and took Jetta’s hand gently. “You know your emotions are normal.”

“I do mourn the loss of my friend,” Jetta said quietly. “But I’m not clinging to the bond fragment out of trauma. It’s…guilt.”

“I know,” Isabel said gently and squeezed her hand. “Despite your very rigid control, it is very clear that you feel guilty for the life you didn’t give your Guide.”

“Many people around us found our platonic relationship bizarre,” Jetta said. “And when Lance found a woman he could love and formed a domestic partnership with her—they realized that I was the problem. I can’t tell you how many times I was asked if I’d seen someone about my sexual dysfunction. I wonder if I’d gotten that question if I were a man.”

“Certainly not,” Isabel said. “And you know it. Did you ever answer anyone’s questions about it?”

“Just the former Alpha Sentinel Prime—Michael Harris. He asked me if I was asexual, and I told him that I was a lesbian. It was shortly after Lance announced his domestic partnership. Alpha Harris told me to get over it. He said the mundanes around us would react terribly to his female beta being a lesbian. I told him he was a sorry motherfucker and that it would be best if he left LA to me and fucked off elsewhere. He’d only moved to the city for status, and it was clear he wasn’t a good fit. I’d been the Alpha of LA since I’d bonded, and no one was interested in his direct oversight.

“Then he fucked off back to San Diego, where he belonged, and we were rarely in the same room after that. I hadn’t seen him in person in over ten years when I attended his funeral, which was three days after Lou Ransone became the new prime. I tried to step down then, but Cristobal asked me to stay where I was and help them adjust. So I did, and I don’t necessarily regret it, but I feel like if I had retired that Lance would be alive to watch his grandchildren play. His wife hates me—she did well while he was alive to keep it in check. But she blames me for the fact they only ever had a domestic partnership. I told him, explicitly, that I didn’t care if he married.”

“Why didn’t he?” Isabel asked curiously.

“He said he could not make such promises to another woman when I would always be his priority due to our bond,” Jetta murmured. “I tried to offer to sever our bond, but I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. It was the only comfort I had at the time, and I felt so fucking selfish for it. He just hugged me and told me that I was his Sentinel and that he’d given me all of his promises and loyalty the day we bonded. He promised me that he didn’t regret it.”

“Did he?”

“I never once noticed him lying to me,” Jetta said. “He loved me. I carried the guilt of not loving him back until the day he died.”

“And maybe that is the root of your relief,” Isabel murmured. “It’s not his death that relieved you, Jetta. It was the fact that you could finally put that guilt down. Where is his wife now?”

“Elizabeth moved to Sacramento,” Jetta said. “Their oldest son lives there, so she wanted to be close to him and the grandkids. She asked me not to contact any of them again because she’d shared her family with me for decades, and she was done doing that. I agreed.”

“That was an unkind thing to do on her part,” Isabel said. “Your Guide’s children were important to you.”

“Yes, they were precious,” Jetta said and took a deep breath. “But I’ve adjusted to that loss and moved on.”

“What do you want for your future?” Isabel questioned. “How would you spend your golden years, Jetta?”

“My mind tells me I should tuck myself away in some corner out of the way and let the world pass me by,” Jetta said. “I’m damaged, Isabel. I’m resentful. You deserve better, and you always did.” She looked down at their hands.

“What does your heart want?”

“You.” Jetta focused on her then, eyes dark with tears yet to be shed. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted since I set eyes on you all those years ago. I hated your husband, Isabel. You don’t deserve to know such a thing on an empathic level, and you will if we bond. I hated your father as well for what his bigotry cost us.”

“I hated my father as well,” Isabel admitted. “Until the day he died. My husband was innocent in all of this, as you know. He never even knew your name, Jetta. He just knew that I’d rejected the only match I’d ever met, and I’d withdrawn from the system the Burton Foundation was using at the time to have meet and greets. My husband didn’t even know my Sentinel was a woman until shortly before he died. He was deeply relieved when I told him I was bisexual. I did love him, and I adored the family I made with him. It was enough then.”

“I’m sorry for how much I hate him then,” Jetta said sullenly. “I feel quite childish about it.”

“I think once we get rid of the bond fragment, you will start to let go of all of that resentment,” Isabel said. “It is clouding your judgment and magnifying your feelings for good and bad. So, we’ll remove the fragment, and I’m prepared to bond with you if you desire it.”

“Are you sure?’ Jetta questioned. “Perhaps it’s too late for us.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Jetta stared for a moment and took a deep breath before she brought their hands up to her mouth, then pressed a soft kiss to Isabel’s hand. “Then I surrender to your care, Guide. I will follow you wherever you wish until my last breath is taken on this Earth.”

The End