Splintering
by Jaclyn // [email protected]
09.15.03

Disclaimer: Yada. Yada. And the first one's pal, Yada #3. (Oh, for pete's sake. Not mine!)

Spoilers: Slouching Towards Bethlehem (so that teeny italicized part isn't mine either).

A/N: With all the 'Lilah's dead. Wesley deals. Or not.' stories floating around, this funky lightbulb went off in front of me (really!), and I thought -- well, what if I turned the tables? This takes place...whenever. Somewhere in the middle of the season, I suppose. AU, obviously. Since, you know. Wesley = alive and kickin'.

*

Lilah turns around and there's an Angel in her doorway.

"Wesley's dead."

There was a wine glass in her hand, long and slender. She's not breathing and it's on the floor all around her, pretty little shards catching the light...

"That was dramatic," Angel says. Lilah's not listening. She automatically steps around the glass, walks in a daze to the bar and pours herself a vodka, straight up. Downs it in one shot and paces back to the couch. Angel's still standing in the doorway, watching her, face unreadable.

Lilah wants to say something, but she can't find it. There are no words inside of her; Wesley's death is taking up too much space. There's no room for thought, no room for a reaction to spread.

The creature in her apartment has no need for oxygen, but she hears the faint, steady sound of rhythmic breathing. It's not her own, and it's like a reminder. She's not breathing at all. Lightheaded, Lilah pulls in a great gulp of air.

So Angel breathes occasionally. She doesn't question; in fact, she doesn't give a damn.

"Lilah," Angel says finally, almost kindly. Though he hates her, the vampire has a healthy respect for grief. "I'll drive you to his apartment."

Finally, a rusty impersonation of Lilah Morgan, Vicious Bitch and Lawyer Extraordinaire, comes up through her throat. "I can drive."

"You shouldn't. Not now."

"Wesley's dead," she says. It is almost a question. They weren't finished. How could he go?

But she, more than anyone, understands that this is the way of things.

"Yes," Angel confirms, with absolutely no emotion whatsoever. Ah, Lilah thinks. We all have different ways of dealing. While I short-circuit, Angel steps into the role of the big protector, and he's too busy dealing with everybody else falling apart to focus on himself.

"How?" Lilah wants to drop to the couch. Can't get her feet to move. Inside she's splintering into a thousand pieces, but somehow, she's still stuck.

"Garlash demon. Claws are a foot long. Appeared out of nowhere, caught him by surprise."

"I always thought he'd...go out with a bang, you know? Sacrifice himself for the perpetuity of the world, or something. Something...bigger than him. So it would be...worth..." Lilah! she rebukes herself. I thought you'd graduated to complete sentences; guess we'll have to rescind your diploma now...

She tells herself that she's not being strangled (mind over matter), and she doesn't dwell on the fact that she's having a civil conversation with this man--er, -pire that she hates. They're like old, awkward friends at a funeral.

"He deserved more."

"Yes," Lilah says, her mouth dry. "That's it."

Angel gives her an odd look. "I wasn't talking about you."

Neither was she, but suddenly she's just so bone-tired that the flow of conversation isn't something Lilah cares to fight.

"Although for the record," Angel continues, "I'll never understand the two of you together."

"Neither will I," she murmurs, and her brain is bursting with Wesley and she thinks she might cry. She wants to, almost. Right now, Lilah's so frozen it scares even her. Who would've thought she'd react so strongly? Certainly not Wesley. Certainly not her.

He was just a fuck. Once.

Her throat closes up. Lilah's done with words. Silently, she slips past Angel and starts on the long stretch of hallway ahead.


Let's just say I could have had Lorne's brain a jar but I left it in his head cuz he's a friend of yours.

What's that supposed to do? Lull me into trusting you again?

If I thought you'd ever trust me...I'd have never played you like that.

Long pause. He looks at her, actually fucking LOOKS. AT. HER.

...It's never simple, is it?


Lilah is drowning.

"Coat, Lilah." He speaks to her like he would an orphaned child.

She realizes a moment too late that there is genuine bafflement on her face. That's something Lilah Morgan never lets through. "Huh?" She needs to snap out of this. He was just a man.

"It's snowing."

Just. A. Man.

Wesley's dead.


END