Title: Myself Am Hell
Author: DM Evans
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Lilah/Wes
Summary: Lilah meets hell's latest arrivals.
Disclaimer: Don't own any of them. Mr. Whedon does.
Author's Notes: This was written for Miss MorganPryce's Hell ficathon and was written for Veggieburger.CHAPTER ONE
Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming.
The Bible: Book of Isaiah xiv. 9
OAKLAWN GARDENS, HADES: SECOND LEFT AFTER THE LIGHT
The Greeks had it right, Lilah mused as she looked at the fenced in garden. There was an unhealthy feel to it. The flowers washed out, the oak and maple leaves spotty with yellow and brown, the trees bearing a little too much shelf mushroom. The squirrels were scabrous with Bot fly tumors. A rancid scent of dirty diapers floated on the barely existent breeze.
The people around her were oblivious to their surroundings, several comatose in their Geri chairs, if Lilah was lucky that was. Otherwise they'd be keeping up low, haunting moans. Some residents parked on the cracked cement patio kept up a constant nonsensical chattering while others screamed and cursed.
The Greeks were a lot more right than the Christians. A burning lake of fire would be a nice reprieve from this. At least it would be relatively quiet. Her Greek hell was tailor-made just for her. Every day it was the same old thing, made all the worse by the knowledge she had willingly signed up for this. How could she have been so foolish?
Lilah didn't have work to look forward to, though occasionally Wolfram and Hart would pluck her out of her hell to do business, just never sending her back to Los Angeles, not after that one time to lure in Angel and his little troop of idiots. Her only wish would have been that Wesley had been left out of it. She had shown Wes the standard contract. She would have thought that would have told them all to turn tail and run. They took the job and she never found out if they had managed to side step the contracts or not. She might have found hell less ugly if she knew Wes was safe from it.
Lilah wasn't sure how that pearl of knowledge might have helped break up the doldrums of her day-to-day existence but she clung to it. Wes had been the best thing that had happened to her in a long time. She knew deep down he loved her, in spite of the cruel things he would occasionally say, in spite of himself. He hadn't wanted to feel for her any more than she wanted to feel something for him. They had gone into the relationship looking to use each other like damaged people were wont to do, then things got complicated.
"Lili, I want to go in. It's too hot." Her mother's voice rattled and grated like someone balling up tin foil, high-pitched with all the effect of licking a car battery.
"Mom, I've been asking you since I was thirteen to stop calling me Lili," Lilah said, knowing it wouldn't get past the armor of Alzheimer's tangles in her mother's brain. With effort, Lilah could get over the idea that this really wasn't her mother. It might be a demon or golem. It didn't matter. The creature looked, acted and even smelled like her demented mother had. Lilah felt the filial demons deep in her heart. She had joined up with Wolfram and Hart as much to provide the best of care for her unfortunate mother as she had for her own betterment.
Here in hell, 'best of care' wasn't understood. This was a step up, perhaps, from a state-run welfare nursing home but only just. It was the type of place that would have broken her living heart to see her mother in. Now, she just followed the routine. Lilah really couldn't do otherwise. Even knowing it was fruitless, she tried to erase the pattern soon after Cordelia had murdered her; what a bitch. Lilah kept hoping to see her here someday. Every time Lilah tried to avoid going to the Oaklawn Gardens Rest Home, she'd black out and wake up within its walls. Day after day she played the dutiful daughter, wondering how people willing stepped into places like this and worked for years in all this very real, if mundane horror, back on earth.
That was the true horror of hell. It wasn't shrieking demons and physical torments. It was the worst of life magnified and stripped of hope. Dante had it right, 'abandon hope.' Time had become meaningless. She could have been here a year or a century. What did it matter? The only way she knew time was passing the same in her hell as on earth were the times she was torn free and spat back out there. That might even be the worst part of her punishment, seeing real life, seeing faces full of hope and love. There was none of that here.
"Lili, I said I want to go in." Her mother rocked violently in her wheelchair.
"Okay Mom." Lilah unlocked the wheels before her mom tipped the chair, then wheeled her inside. The smells nearly overwhelmed Lilah. It was why she liked to sit with her mother outside in the garden. Lilah tried not to breathe in but it wasn't like she could hold her breath forever. Hell wasn't that kind. The acrid smell of cleaning solution couldn't mask the scents of dirty adult diapers and putrefying wounds. Hell was in the details. The aroma of dinner did nothing to make the place more pleasant.
Lilah pushed her mother down the hall, trying to ignore the guttural moans and cries of the elderly in pain. She tried not to look at the residents sleeping in their Geri chairs in the hall, which passed as a view for them, slack jawed, drooling on themselves. Others rocked fiercely, dragging their locked wheelchairs down the corridors in spite of the nurses' attempts to keep them in place. Other, more lucid residents, wheeled freely through hallways, which reverberated with battling TV's at top volume. Jerry Springer armwrestled with General Hospital. As far as Lilah was concerned both shows belonged in hell.
She wheeled her mother into her room. "It's getting late, Mom. I'm going home."
"Who are you?" Her mother shot her a hard-eyed look. Lilah cast a glance at the clock. It really was getting late and as the day wore on her mother would get worse. The doctors called it Sun-downer's Syndrome. Afflicted Alzheimer's patients became more aggressive, more agitated and their memories worsened. Hell was the evening shift at a nursing home. Lilah tried to get out of Oaklawn Gardens before dinnertime.
"It's Lilah, Mom."
"You're too old to be Lili." Her mother clawed Lilah's arm with sharp nails. "I want to go home."
Lilah examined the bleeding ruts her mother had dug in her forearm. "You are home, Mom."
"This isn't my home. Where are my things?" Her mother rocked hard in the chair, nearly tipping it.
"Your things are here, Mom." Lilah headed out the door before it got worse. She walked to the nurses' station, drumming her fingers on the desk for a little while until the nurses looked up. Hell as a state-run, understaffed nursing home, what had she honestly done to deserve this?
"My mother is getting agitated," she said to Jade, a tall beauty with caf é au lait skin whom Lilah was sure was another damned soul. She had the look.
"We'll go lie her down, Ms Morgan." Jade sounded exhausted.
"Thank you."
Lilah walked off. She didn't want to see her mother fighting the nurses. She didn't want to know if her mother had already fallen out of her chair. Even knowing it really wasn't her mom, she'd feel the same pain as if the old woman lying on the cold floor truly were her mother. Lilah had wasted her day in this place, just as she wasted every day. She was allowed short reprises where she'd go home to her modest apartment, watch a little TV – maybe piped from Earth, who knew – and go to sleep.
As she made her way through the labyrinth halls that connected the lock-down Alzheimer's ward to other parts of the nursing home, Lilah saw the light pouring through a door she had never seen before. She pushed on it, surprised it wasn't locked. There had to be something the Powers That Be wanted her to see.
The door opened to a hospital ward, a hospital she had never seen but had heard talk of when an Oaklawn Gardens resident had been hurt from time to time. Peering in the open room doors, Lilah guessed it was a pediatric ward, how unusual. More demon window dressing or kids so wicked they ended up here? She didn't want to know. She saw a patient that wasn't a child and it was someone she hadn't been expecting.
His hair had gotten long and he had picked up weight. She wasn't sure it looked good on him. A strong sense of sadness welled up from deep insider her, taking her by surprise with the sharpness of the emotion. She had cared for him more than she imagined. Lilah walked into the room, assuming there was something she was meant to see since there was no one to stop her.
"Lindsey," she said softly.
"Mommy?" He was looking right at her but obviously he was seeing something else or perhaps no one at all. "Mommy, is that you?"
"Yes, dear," she answered, trying to see where this would go.
"Mommy, am I going to go to heaven like Bobbi Jo and Kyle?" He shuddered from head to toe. "I feel so sick, Mommy."
Lilah realized in a heartbeat what Lindsey's hell was. She had done her research, knew his history, even if she hadn't used it against him. It felt too dirty, even back then when they were in competition. She knew about the flu that killed two of his siblings. She knew the poverty he grew up in. Now Lindsey was that sick child again, terrified of dying, calling for his mother. Suddenly her hell didn't seem so bad. Did he know who he was, trapped inside the little boy? Lilah hoped not. "It'll be all right, Lindsey,” she said and hurried away. It hurt somehow, knowing Lindsey was dead.
Like her, Lindsey was too young to die. As she got in her car and drove for home, Lilah thought about her former partner in crime lying in that bed waiting for eternity to die a horrible death. She remembered their fights, their insane competitions to curry favor, the strong scent of underlying sexual tension that could never be acted on. She hadn't ever loved him but she had once lusted for him just a little, hiding it behind a shield of arrogance and the sharp sword of her tongue.
Lilah remembered the fear and sadness she felt in that boardroom meeting when Lindsey told them all to go to hell and left the firm. Fear, knowing she would shoulder their burden alone. Sadness, realizing she would miss him. They inspired each other to do better, even when they were cutting each other's throats. Those emotions gave way to anger and then to ambition and she missed him less. Still, she had always been amazed that he had escaped Wolfram and Hart until now. Maybe she'd try to visit him. Hell was obviously allowing that. Would he ever know her? Could he, like her, fight off the influences enough, to see hell for what it was? In some ways it made today a little less scary to her.
Lilah curled up on her sofa with a frozen dinner – surely a demonic invention – watching the TV disinterestedly. Her cat, Chumley, kept trying to snag food off her plate. Lilah had always been convinced cats originated in hell and Chumley was the proof in the pudding. As she ate, she heard noise in the apartment next door. That was new. Occasionally she'd see other damned souls wandering the apartment halls but she rarely heard them. Today seemed to be an unusual one.
As she finished her meal and stroked the gray cat, Lilah heard the sounds of someone being beaten and a plead for daddy to stop. There was something naggingly familiar about the voice. The screams and the sounds of flesh hitting flesh didn't stop. Lilah couldn't call the cops. There was no 911 in Hell. There were police, after a fashion, but they existed mostly to play to the worst of their kind, worse than the criminals. Finally, she got up and went to investigate. It was too unusual to ignore.
She knocked on the door, not surprised when no one answered. She turned the knob, only vaguely shocked when it wasn't locked. Some higher being had to be trying to tell her something with this day. The apartment felt like a British gentleman's club to her, all dark burnished woods and leather furniture. She saw no one. Going further inside, Lilah found a little boy's room, or so she guessed from the furnishing. She knelt and looked under the bed to see if she could find the frightened child.
As she was straightening up, someone ran in. For a moment it was as painful as dying all over again. She looked into Wesley's blue eyes, one of them blackened and swollen, and saw no recognition in them. What was happening on earth? It had to be bad to send her Lindsey and Wes in the same day. Lilah was suddenly glad she was already dead and didn't have to face it.
"Wesley?" Her voice crackled.
"Who are you? You can't be here," he said, his voice, a little like Lindsey's, the same pitch and cadence of a frightened child. "Daddy will be mad… he's so mad already."
"Did your father do this?" Lilah went to lightly stroke Wes' battered eye but he ducked away.
"He was hitting Mum again and I tried to stop him. He's so mad. We have to hide." Wesley caught her hand, dragging her into the walk-in closet.
"Wesley, do you remember me?" she asked as they huddled in the dark.
"I don't know you," he hissed, pressing his hands over her mouth hard. "Shhh, Daddy will find us."
Lilah stroked his hair. He and Lindsey must have been processed by the same higher being, handed the same torment, their ugly childhoods. Wesley had told her just a hint of the verbal, emotional and physical abuse he had endured at the hands of man he would never be good enough for. Lilah thought about her mother and the good times they had before her illness. She had been the lucky one. "You remember me, Wesley. It's just locked up in here. Think hard." She tapped his temple. Could she make him remember? She didn't know. What would happen if she did? Why did she want him to? That was easy to answer. If he remembered, maybe they could be together again, even briefly, taking momentary respites from their hell.
The closet door flew open and a distinguished, gray-bearded man stood there, impossibly huge. This was how Wes saw his father, too big, too strong, someone he could never prevail against.
"How dare you hide from me, boy!" Roger Wyndam-Pryce said. "It only makes your punishment worse."
Wesley shivered against Lilah. "No, Daddy, please."
"Who is this? Who told you, you could have friends over?" Roger stabbed a finger at Lilah. What did this demon see her as? She didn't want to know. "Now I'm very vexed."
"Shut up and leave him alone," Lilah said, getting to her feet. What was she doing? Could she actually get involved in someone else's hell?
Wesley's father's eyes widened. "How dare you speak to me like this?"
"Get out of our way. Wesley and I are leaving!" Lilah turned and held out her hand to her quivering former lover.
Wesley looked at her hand, then up into her face. Something sparked in his eyes. "Lilah?"
Her heart swelled with excitement then everything went black. When she woke up she was in her bed, Chumley sitting on her chest. When she went to her front door, it was locked from the other side. Hell had stepped in.
CHAPTER TWO
myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven .John Milton Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 73.
THE CONUNDRUM
Lilah tried to get back into the Wyndham-Pryce residence but the door was locked. Maybe because someone knew she was trying to interfere. Maybe she was on Hell's time at the moment and when she was on her own time, she would have different results. That didn't keep her from trying to get to Wesley until she blacked out again and woke up sitting in the lounger in her mother's room at Oaklawn Gardens.
It was toenail-clipping day. The podiatrist was trying to set up her tools, arranging them around the elder Morgan's wheelchair. Lilah's mother was screeching at the doctor to get out of her room, swatting at her. The podiatrist was another person Lilah didn't doubt was a damned soul. She glanced up at Lilah. "Your mother seems agitated today."
Lilah gritted her teeth. "I'll get the nurses."
She dragged down the hall, thinking of Wes and Lindsey instead of her bleak surroundings. Luckily, Lilah's reflexes had been honed in her time here so when Mr Sterling dug in his diaper and whipped a handful of feces at her, Lilah dodged easily. The old man cackled at Lilah as she hurried along to the nurses' station. Jade saw her coming this time.
"Problems, Ms Morgan?"
"The doctor wants to work on Mom's feet but she's in a mood today," Lilah said. "And Mr Sterling is whipping shit again."
"When isn't he?" Jade nodded knowingly. "I'll give you guys a hand."
The doctor was sitting on the floor, trying to pry Mrs Morgan's foot away from the wheelchair but the old lady had it locked behind the footrest. She kept trying to punch the doctor, ripping at her hair. Jade knelt down and helped extract Mrs Morgan's foot from the wheelchair.
Lilah caught her mother's arms, trying to hold her firmly without ripping her paper-thin skin. "Mom, stop that. The doctor just wants to help."
"You all go to hell. Fucking bitches!" Mrs Morgan shrieked. That was another part of Alzheimer's Lilah hated. Her mother never swore. Cursing used to make her blush. If her mother could hear the words coming out of her own mouth, she'd be mortified.
"Think it's a little late for that, Mom," Lilah said bitterly.
"Tell me about it," the doctor said, trying to clip the elder Morgan's thick, yellow nails. Jade tried to hold her leg steady but Mrs Morgan still managed to keep kicking the podiatrist in the chest as the young lady worked.
Maybe if Lilah had spent more time with her mother in life, this wouldn't have been her hell. She used to say there wasn't time to get out to her real mother's nursing home more than once or twice a month. Maybe she was just a bad daughter but having no time wasn't exactly a lie. Working for Wolfram and Hart had left her precious little time. Before Wesley, Lilah couldn't even remember the last time she had gone on a date. She had no life of her own outside of the firm. She used that as an excuse whenever she saw the nurses in her mother's real nursing home. The brutal truth was Lilah couldn't handle seeing the shell of her mother in the lovely care facility she paid for. It was nothing like Oaklawn Gardens. It had been beautiful and well-staffed but even it had a depressing air, subtle sour smells and her mother had been just as demented and violent there, too.
"Let's do the other foot, Mrs Morgan," the doctor said, and Jade helped her wrestle the foot into position. The doctor peeled off the compression stocking, making a face. "I don't like the looks of that."
"What?" Lilah leaned closer, seeing the pitch-black area the doctor was pressing on. It seemed soft like rotted melon.
"A bed sore on her heel." The doctor looked over her shoulder at Lilah. "Don't worry, we'll get her fixed up."
Lilah listened numbly as the podiatrist told her the treatment regimes and potential complications. She wondered what would happen if she let her ersatz mother's foot just rot off. Would this old woman die? Would they remove body parts, whittling her away bit by bit, a fate many other residents suffered both here and on earth? Would she black out and find she had okayed the treatment? Would her mother die and be reborn again and again, forcing her to watch her suffer and bury her only to start the cycle again? Lilah didn't want to know. She okayed the procedure and told them she'd be back to see her mother after the doctor was done.
She felt the guilt of leaving her mother but Lilah swallowed it back. She had to know if she would be barred from Lindsey as she had been from Wes. No one stopped her as she meandered through the hallways. She found the door leading to the pediatric ward easily enough. Lindsey was right where she had left him. This time she flicked on the light and he woke up. He had an IV in one arm and an oxygen cannula affixed under his nose.
"Mommy?"
"She'll be here soon, Lindsey," she lied, deciding she couldn't keep up a pretense of being his mom for long. Besides, she wanted him to see her as Lilah and come back to himself. Hadn't Wesley done just that, if only for a second? "I'm Lilah. We used to be friends." Was that a lie, too? Had they ever been friends? Rivals, certainly, enemies, occasionally, but had they ever felt friendship? She couldn't remember, but it was a worthy lie at this point.
"I don't feel good," he moaned, shifting onto his side.
Lilah stroked the hair off his forehead. He might look adult but he thought he was a little boy. Either way he was burning with fever. She didn't doubt that he felt bad. Occasionally her neck twinged but usually it wasn't too bad, not like this sickness gripping Lindsey. She could see it eating at him. "Want me to sit with you for a while?"
He nodded. "You aren't afraid of gettin' sick?"
"I'm not afraid." Lilah held his hand. She saw a bit of red where his nightshirt had hiked up on one side. She ran a soothing hand over his belly to cover the fact she was lifting his shirt up. The bullet holes didn't look like much, dark spots on his abdomen and chest but on his back it looked like oranges had been blow straight through him. She could see the viscera moving around inside. Someone had shot the hell out of Lindsey. Lilah supposed it didn't come as a big surprise.
"I'm gonna die," he told her solemnly.
She fought back the sudden swell of emotion. Lindsey was so afraid and she had no way of making him see the truth. "No, Lindsey, you're not going to die."
"Am, too. Just like my brother and sister. Mommy said they went to Heaven." His bottom lip pushed out as fat tears rolled down his cheeks. "I'm scared to die."
Lilah squeezed his hand. "It'll be okay, Lindsey. I promise you. You don't have to be afraid of dying."
She lost track of how long she sat there with Lindsey, comforting him. Promises of protection, even scaring off a nurse with a rectal thermometer, didn't seem to break Lindsey out of his delusion like it had Wesley. After a while, seeing Lindsey like this was far more depressing than caring for her mother. Maybe that's why she had been allowed to see him, an extra dollop of anguish to digest. Still, he begged her to come back to see him again and she promised she would. The scared-little-boy-act tore at her heart too much for her to say no. Lilah had never wanted kids and now she knew why. They slipped into your soul and took too much. Some would say they gave more than they took but she couldn't depend on that.
Lilah found her mom playing balloon volleyball by the time she got back. She remembered this game back on earth, recalled the wash of depression watching the nurses dragging in chairs for the ambulatory residents and wheeling in the rest to set them on either side of a low net so the residents could bat around a balloon. The occupational therapists said it was good for them. Lilah found it to be numbingly dismaying. Still, if it kept her mother occupied, she was all for it. She thought for a moment about going back to sit with Lindsey some more but that was even more disheartening so she watched the TV instead. Satan take her, Oprah was on. Maybe she could find a spoon to gouge out her eyes.
No spoons handy, Lilah turned her mind off to the outside world and started thinking about Wesley and what it meant that she had broken through to him, if even just a little. The way she had been slammed back into her apartment told her someone hadn't liked that. She worried at that conundrum as balloon volleyball gave way to Bingo. As she helped her mother mark her cards, Lilah kept wanting to call it an early day and go test some theories. She couldn't move from her mother's side. This was a fresh hell. Wesley and Lindsey had given her something new to think on, something to hope for and hope in hell was worse than hell itself. Some higher being must have known of her desire and had pinioned her to her mother's side just so she couldn't act on it.
Hell kept her in Oaklawn Gardens all the way through lunch – her mother hit her with mashed potatoes – and practically to dinner. Lilah drove home, daring a cop to ticket her; that was part of what cops did here, give out tickets, warranted or not, and one was lucky not to get beaten or raped in the process. No cops bothered her tonight, however. Wesley's door was locked when she got home and no one answered her knocks.
Crushed, Lilah went to her place and did the only thing she could; feed Chumley and made herself another frozen dinner. Maybe she should learn to cook but it had been a skill that escaped her in mortal life. It might be even more deadly if she tried now. She and Chumley curled up on the couch in front of Starsky and Hutch reruns. It was the only thing on. Hell had a sense of humor. It didn't take long for her to start hearing the screams next door. Before Lilah could get up and see if she could intervene once more, someone pounded on the door.
"Please, let me in! Help me!'
Lilah ran to the door, recognizing Wesley's voice. She flung the door open and he stumbled in, collapsing to his knees at her feet. She locked the door behind him then put her arms around his shaking body. He sobbed hopelessly as she hauled him up and got him to the couch.
"Can Daddy find me here?" he begged to know.
"I don't know but if he does, I won't let him hurt you." Lilah kissed the crown of his head. "Do you remember me, Wes?"
He bobbed his head. "You're the nice lady from last night."
Whatever had sparked in him last night was gone and Lilah felt like Sisyphus flattened by the boulder. "You know me from before that, Wes. Try to remember."
He curled up against her, trembling fiercely. He kept his face covered as fear-borne tears came fast and hard. She didn't think he was trying to remember so she just held him close, wondering how she could force his recall. She had had no luck with Lindsey but Wes was different. They had felt something for each other. He had remembered, however briefly, last night.
Chumley climbed on Wes' hip. He grabbed the gray tabby and cuddled it close. Lilah pillowed Wes' head in her lap, stroking his back. She couldn't help herself. She saw no wounds on his head or neck, so like with Lindsey she turned explorer. It took all of three seconds to discover the huge stab wound in his gut. Lilah wept silently. Wes had died a slower, more lingering death than either she or Lindsey. She wept out of pity and anger. He should have known better than to sign up with Wolfram and Hart. She should have found a way to get past the geas keeping her from warning him away during that one after-death meeting, forcing her to reel him in. They both had failed miserably.
"Do you remember me now, Wes?" she asked after her tears dried and he had calmed.
"From last night."
Before Lilah could try another tack, someone else pounded on the door. "Give me back my son!"
Wesley yelped, jumped up, and ran deeper into Lilah's apartment. Lilah picked up her dinner knife and went to the door. She tore it open and brandished the knife in Roger Wyndam-Pryce's face. "You come here again and I'll castrate you and feed you your testicles," she promised in a soft, glacially calm tone.
It worked. The ersatz Roger – or maybe it was the real one given what she knew of the man – turned tail and ran back to the safety of his home. Lilah tossed the knife in the kitchen after locking her door and went on a search for Wesley. She found him hiding in her closet. She held out a hand. "I got rid of him. He can't hurt you here."
He looked at that hand like he had last night then up at her and she saw the recognition in his eyes. "Lilah."
"Wes!" She fell to her knees beside him. "You remember me?"
"Have I forgotten you?" He looked around, obviously confused.
"You tend to think you're a little boy back in your father's home," she said and his eyebrows raised. "Welcome to hell."
"Oh." He felt his gut. "That's right. I died. I wasn't expecting… she said..." He trailed off, his blue eyes glistening.
"Who?" If Fred's name came out of his mouth, Lilah would probably cry. She knew Wesley had loved that ridiculous twig of a woman but she wasn't ready to deal with it. Even in hell, that would be too much.
" Illyria," he said, his brow wrinkling as if unable to summon up the name.
Lilah shook her head. "I don't know who that is."
"This is hell?" He trembled as he said it.
"A hell at any rate, my hell." Lilah rested against his shoulder. "I'm not sure why you and Lindsey suddenly appeared in it."
Wes's blue eyes narrowed as if he were trying to make sense of it. She stroked his cheek.
"I know it's very confusing. I was pretty disoriented at first when I arrived. It gets better," Lilah said, wondering if it would be true for him since hell seemed to want him to be a little boy reliving childhood traumas. She smiled at him. "I'm not glad you're here, Wes, but I am at the same time. Does that make sense?"
He smiled wanly. "It does."
Lilah leaned in to kiss him. The lights dimmed and when she came out of the swoon, Wes was gone and she was locked back in.
"Damn."
CHAPTER THREE
All hell shall stir for this.
William Shakespeare - King Henry V. Act v. Sc. 1.
A HOPE IN HELL
"You be nice, Mom," Lilah said, holding her mother's arm. The doctors wanted the elder Morgan to be more ambulatory and her mother most assuredly didn't agree.
"I don't know you," her mother spat, punching at her. "Where's my Lili?"
"I'm right here, Mom and please, stop calling me that." Lilah sighed, trying to hurry the slapping, pinching, clawing old woman back to her room and her wheelchair. "It's almost time for you to see the beautician. That'll be nice."
"She'll paint my nails like a whore," Mrs Morgan said, trying to sit down in the hall. Lilah hauled her up. "My Lili wouldn't like that."
Lilah looked at her own nails painted a ferocious red. Wes liked them that way. "How about a nice pale pink? You'd like that, Mom."
"No."
"Fine, I'll tell the beautician no nail polish." Lilah plopped her mother down in the wheelchair.
"I hate this room," her mother said, waving a hand around her private room. "The woman in the next bed is a pig."
"Mom, you have a private room. There is no other bed," Lilah said, starting to wheel her mom to the beauty shop.
"What do you know? You're a stranger."
Lilah didn't respond. She dropped her mom off at the beautician's then headed to see Lindsey. She still hadn't managed to reach him and shatter his nightmare. More than a month had passed since he and Wesley had appeared in her hell. She was more sure than ever that they weren't some ancillary demons shoved into her hell, pretending to be her men. They were the real thing. Everything she had tried with Lindsey had failed. He remained steadfastly the sick little boy but he looked forward to her visits, so Lilah tried to go daily, hoping maybe one day he'd remember her.
When she got into the room, Lindsey was sobbing and screaming in fear. What looked like a Catholic priest – hell was full of them; the old proverb was true, the roads in hell were paved with the skulls of priests of any variety of beliefs – was trying to rub chrisma oil on Lindsey's feet. Lindsey's ears, eyes, lips and nose already glistened with the holy oil.
"Get out," she told him.
The old priest whirled, looking at her with rheumy eyes. "I'm performing the extreme unction."
"You're scaring him to death." Lilah yanked the priest away from the bedside. "Lindsey doesn't need the last rites."
"Without the sacrament, this child's soul is damned," the priest argued hotly, obviously old school.
"One, the child isn't even Catholic. Two, he's already dead, three, he's already damned, now get out and quit scaring him." Lilah stabbed a finger at the door.
Sparing her a vicious look, the priest packed up his stuff and left. Lilah sat at Lindsey's bedside. His hand fumbled for hers.
Lindsey's blue eyes seemed too big for his wan face. "I'm already dead?"
She smiled, brushing his hair back. "I just told that awful man that so he'd leave you alone. You're fine. Want me to turn on the TV? I bet Scooby Doo is on."
He grinned. "Yeah."
Lilah turned on his TV. His hell seemed very geared toward his childhood and his TV reflected that by only showing children's TV. On really bad days, the only thing on were Barney, Spongebob Squarepants and the old H.R. Pufnstuff. Those were the days she'd turn the TV back off and tell him stories. Today Scooby Doo was on so she left it. It sure as hell beat the talk shows and soap operas that came on her mother's TV.
"Can you stay long?" he asked, settling back.
She squeezed his hand. "Not too long today. I have to get back to my mom."
"I wish my mommy would come." Lindsey shivered. "I'm so scared without her."
Lilah couldn't look at him, couldn't bear the fear in his eyes. "If you get scared, Lindsey, call for me. I'll try to come."
"Thank you." He sat up and kissed her cheek before turning back to the show.
She knew she would never hear him or help him if hell was out to torment him, just as she couldn't interfere much in what happened to Wesley. However, unlike Lindsey, she could reach Wesley. Every day, they pushed the boundaries further and further. It took a week before they could kiss without demonic interference. It took the month before intimacy was allowed, a strange intimacy where neck and belly wounds weren't a distraction, particularly painful and thankfully not bloody. Somehow they had made a bubble of time that was theirs alone. In the day, they suffered; she here in Oaklawn Gardens, he in his childhood home, but at night, they were together. Lilah kept waiting for something to come and snatch that away because it was something they liked, something they looked forward to. She was amazed hell had let it gone on for so long.
Lilah sat with the feverish Lindsey until he fell asleep. She collected her mother from the beauty shop, the old woman moaning and crying the beautician had made her look like a painted whore. Lilah finally calmed her mother in time for arts and crafts. She sat with her while her mother and other residents cut out construction paper, under the watchful eye of an occupational therapist and nurses' aides, and decorated the bits with glitter glue and crayons. It struck Lilah, not for the first time, that this was life come full circle. Her mother was back to using safety scissors and eating with a bib like a pre-schooler. In some sick way, Lilah was glad she had never gotten this old.
Lilah stopped for Chinese take out on her way home, sesame wontons for her, General Tso's chicken for him. It wasn't good Chinese, nor was it bad. It was just there, that was another flavor of hell, bland mediocrity. Chumley waited at the door for a panicked young Wes to pound on it. The cat had come to expect the nightly visits. It usually took Wes about five minutes to settle down and remember his adult life. When he did, they ate, Wes slipping Chumley hunks of pork from the fried rice. It was no wonder the cat liked him.
They curled up together on the couch to watch TV. There was no need to rush headlong into the bedroom like teens. No matter how good, even sex got boring after a while if that's all one did. There was more pleasure in trying to maintain a normal relationship. Hell knew they had a more normal relationship now than they were had in life. Finding things to talk about was sometimes hard. She didn't want to talk about her days with her mom and he most definitely didn't want to talk about his father. They occasionally talked about mortal life but that became quickly dismal.
Once they had talked about Fred but only briefly. Wes wanted to know what Lilah knew about Illyria. She had only vague recollections from some inner office memos. Lilah had been surprised Knox had pulled off summoning the ancient creature and not surprisingly felt nothing about the death of Fred and her body being inhabited by Illyria but she never told Wes that. They usually limited conversation to how she and Wes were successful in shaking loose hell's hold on him and why they couldn't free up Lindsey.
Lilah flipped through the channels on the TV. Hell seemed to be in a good mood. There were movies worth watching.
"Leave it there," Wes said as Indiana Jones came on and Lilah was content with that. She liked Harrison Ford. Wes laughed roughly.
"What?" she snuggled against his chest.
"This was one of Angel's favorite movies." Wes grinned. "I remembered him telling me that and thinking, 'Angel likes Indiana Jones? How peculiar'."
"It does boggle the mind," Lilah agreed with a smile.
"Angel was like that. You thought you knew him and then he'd come out of left field with something totally bizarre." Wes's expression softened with the remembrance. "I'm more surprised that hell doesn't have me reliving the last two years, me betraying him and vice versa."
"Am I included in that betrayal?" she asked without venom or concern, just simple curiosity.
Wes stroked his chin, thinking for a moment. "At the time I liked to tell myself that yes you were but it wouldn't be the whole truth."
"Good." Lilah shifted on the couch making room for Chumley.
Wes took a drag on his bottle of beer. Hell's sense of humor reared its ugly head again. He couldn't get good British beer here, just Milwaukee's Best, more like piss water than real beer. "I've been thinking about this Lilah, why you were able to break me free of my father's hold."
"I'm listening." A hint of excitement crept up. They had both been puzzling this out ever since they started stealing time together, mostly silently, keeping their thoughts to themselves.
"Think about it. Why would they want you to know that Lindsey and I were both dead and here now?"
"Other than to deepen my despair?" Bitterness colored her tone. Wes wrapped an arm around her tightly. "I've considered that the Powers That Be did this by design. I met you both on the same day."
"I don't doubt we both died the same day. Angel wanted Lindsey dead. My death wasn't planned but was highly likely. It's likely none of them survived the Black Thorn's attack." Wes's face went thoughtful. "So why are only Lindsey and I here? Fred's been dead for months. She had the same contract as I did and yet you've not seen her. Gunn was the least likely to survive the attack but he's not here. Either he did survive or maybe he didn't, and, like Fred, Gunn has been sequestered elsewhere. Spike, Angel and Illyria might have survived but I know Angel wasn't expecting it. He sent his son and Nina away."
"Demons would probably get a different sentence than us. Angel and Spike's souls had prior claims on them," Lilah said. "I wouldn't expect to see them."
"Nor would I." Wes reached across her to pet Chumley. "But something is afoot. Can you feel it?"
Lilah nodded. She had been thinking that since the first day she ran across both men. "Yes. I thought it was odd that you and Lindsey were both trapped in your childhoods, even when there were equal hells to be culled from your adult lives. It was like a sign. I thought maybe the same entity was in charge of your suffering. What I can't puzzle out is why that would be or how I got through to you and not him."
"What have you come up with?" His blue eyes regarded her inquisitively.
"One option is that you really aren't Wesley's soul and he isn't Lindsey, that you're a new fresh layer of paint in my hell and that after giving me this hope, giving me something to look forward to each day, that it'll be taken away and hell becomes that much more bleak," she said, not meeting his eyes, trying not to weep at the thought.
Wes nodded. "Reasonable assumption."
Lilah pulled herself together, shuddering. "I get pulled back to the surface from time to time, as you well know, as part of my contract. I'm wondering if someone or something isn't bringing us together for reasons we can't see yet," Lilah continued, not sure she liked that idea any better than she did Wesley being like her mom, a mere non-role playing character in hell.
Wes took another swallow of beer. "That was my surmises. I think there is a lot of merit in that theory. I think someone wants something from you and I, and perhaps in time, Lindsey, too."
"We're dead. What do they think we can do?" She dreaded the answer, having ugly ideas of her own.
Wes' lips parted in an eerie smile. "You convinced all of us to sign on with Wolfram and Hart after you were dead."
She felt like hitting him for that. "Don't remind me."
"When has dead really meant dead in our world, Lilah?" Wes made that rough laugh again. "I can name two resurrected people without even thinking hard on it, Buffy and Darla."
"Three, Connor," Lilah said, a pitiless amused remembrance of Angel's pain bobbing to the surface. "Angel cut the brat's throat before dropping his corpse on our door step and telling us to fix him."
Wes nodded. "My point exactly. Dead isn't dead. If someone has plans for us, you and I could be the next ones brought back and forced back into life."
"Or stay dead. It doesn't keep Wolfram and Hart from finding uses for me," Lilah said, ruefully.
"I think it's too much of a coincidence that you, Lindsey and I are here together. Something has plans for us."
"That might be why it took so long for us to get this far. Whoever it is putting us together is trying to sneak it under someone's radar or else you and Lindsey would have come fully equipped with your memories and you and I wouldn't have kept blacking out and getting shoved into our respect corners of hell. So long as our changes were gradual, we got away with it," Lilah said, then felt a pit of despair forming in her heart. "Do you think there's a chance this is real or are we deluding ourselves?"
"Maybe we are. Maybe we need to." Wes trailed a finger up her arm. " Milton wrote, 'The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.' The question becomes, in wondering if this is real are we making heaven out of hell or vice versa."
Lilah rubbed her forehead. "That's giving me a headache."
He laughed more easily this time. "I know. I think it's real. I think when the time comes, the Powers That Be will give us back Lindsey as well."
"Whatever else he might have been, Lindsey was bright. If this is real, I want him on our side," Lilah said, having no doubt of that in her mind. "I think it's real… wonder how long this will take."
"It could be a very long time indeed. Time has little meaning here." Wes sighed. "And whatever is it, you're the pivotal player, Lilah. Even when I'm trapped in my hell, hiding from my dad, barely able to remember who you are, I know soon you'll be home and I'll be safe." He kissed her softly. "Lindsey lies in that hospital bed waiting for you to tell him one day he'll feel better again. Whatever's coming, if it even is, you're the one who matters most."
Lilah buried her fingers in Chumley's fur, turning that over in her mind. She had always wanted to be the one who mattered, to be the one who had the power. Now, she'd much rather have someone take care of her. Was that her doubts? Hell was in doubting, that much she knew. "I think you're right, Wes. Now what?"
"We continue as we are. You and I, together as much as we can be. We'll try to find ways to reach Lindsey and when the time comes, we'll be ready," he said, with no signs of doubt.
Lilah drew on that. "I'm sure of that." She kissed him warmly and they left Chumley watching Indiana Jones while they retired to her bedroom. As they lay in a tangle of warm bodies, Lilah found a sense of purpose, her hope in hell. If they were right and something was priming them for a new mission, she was ready for it. Maybe this time she'd get the chance to fix her mistakes. Even if it was a delusion, it was a good one. She felt more right and whole than she had in a very long time. Go on, universe, throw something my way. I'll be ready. That in mind, Lilah spooned with her lover, finally content.