Heat of the moment (1/19)

Author- Midnight Faith

Spoilers- 'Billy'

Distribution- FF.net, AOH, buffysearch.net and Neurotica… anyone else just ask :)

Pairing- Lilah/Lindsey

Rating- R

Summary- Lindsey gets a visitor

Disclaimer- they belong to the almighty Joss… I am but a child in his candy store

Dedication- To Bobbi who is one in a million

"Anyone know a good mechanic?"

The voice was all too chillingly familiar to Lindsey, though it took him a few seconds to register. But here she was, though it barely seemed possible; on one hand the personification of all that he wanted to leave behind, but on the other…

"No 'hello' hug? A kiss maybe…" Lilah said, grinning almost evilly when he turned to her.

"What are you doing here?" he said, turning to her, face set like stone showing no friendliness or familiarity.

"I told you. I need my car serviced."

"What are you doing here?" he repeated, unrelenting.

"What did you lose your hearing as well as your mind when you left LA?"

"Let's rephrase this so even you can understand: What are you doing here in Cordell, four days drive away from LA of all the garages in the whole of the United States?"

He looked past her slightly suspiciously, out into the encroaching wheat fields that seemed to swallow the garage whole.

"I wanted to see if it was true. California's brightest, hottest lawyer is now changing strangers' brake fluid for a few bucks…"

"I'm running my own garage not singing on the streets."

"If you call that intense yowling sound you make singing…"

"Right. That's it," he said, beginning to lose patience, "Five seconds to get out or I'm calling the cops…"

"And say what? The girl I used to work with, slash fuck on the side, wants me to service her car?"

"Thanks for bringing up the memory I constantly pray to forget…"

"Anytime, honey." She said sarcastically, Lindsey's eyes momentarily widened in surprise before he remembered how sardonic she could be.

"Look, do you want me to service your damn car or not?" Lindsey exploded, suddenly angry with her for invading his personal space.

"Why else would I be here?"

"It'll take two days." He said non-committal, trying to regain some semblance of privacy, though he felt strangely comforted and familiar with her nearness.

"I've got time."

"There's no motels in a thirty mile radius."

"Like I'd stoop as low as a Holiday Inn… wow… looks like we'll be sharing a bed again…" she added with a grin, feeling oddly happy at the concept, the image flickering through her head.

"We never shared a bed… and there's no way… besides… I'm actually living with my parents right now…"

She snickered slightly.

"Could your life get more pathetic? A qualified lawyer who has a thing for motor oil living at home?"

"Why don’t you come closer and say that?"

"Why don't you?"

Frustrated he grabbed her wrist to pull her close for a rough, emotionless, needy kiss but she instantaneously hissed in pain and pulled her wrist away.

"What?" he asked her, almost angrily.

"It's nothing," she snapped defensively, cradling her wrist in her other hand.

"Let me see…"

"No!"

"Let me see," he repeated forcefully, grabbing her wrist again and pulling the sleeve of her top up.

She gasped in pain as his eyes fell on a heavy ring of purple bruising surrounding her wrist bones. At the point of severest impact, capillaries had burst leaving thin, red, jagged lines.

"You’re hurting me," she told him.

He didn't apologise only reducing his grip a little but he still had her firmly within his grasp.

"What the hell happened?" he asked, anger at who had hurt her and softness evident in his voice.

She feigned a minor struggle against him, not meaning to overpower rather to show no weakness.

"I think I slammed it in a door," she said dryly, attempting to sound honest.

"You think? You might remember something like that…" he said, turning her hand over in his so he could further inspect the top of her wrist, seeing obvious finger marks around her pulse point as he did so.

"This was no accident…" he realised, anger at her attacker evident in his eyes as they met hers, "Who did this?"

"No-one… it was no-one…" she said fearfully, suddenly afraid of what he himself was capable of. Was he able to hurt her? She knew her lines of trust, never strong to begin with were blurring fast… couldn’t she distinguish between 'good' and 'evil' anymore?

"Have you had this checked out by a doctor?"

"No… but it's not broken… it's still mobile. Besides it's better… two days ago it was the size of a tennis ball and bright blue… just give me the number of a cab company and a good hotel…"

He looked at her for a moment, half in suspicion of her motives for running to Oklahoma. She wouldn’t just leave LA… there had to be something else… something… deeper.

"Who did this?"

"Drop it… no-one… give me your yellow pages, since I know the alphabet poses a challenge." Lilah said, suddenly annoyed, chiding herself for coming to see him and feeling a strong urge to run away again.

"Who did this, Lilah?"

"You think this is bad? You should see the bruises on my back…"

He sighed bewilderedly and ran a hand through his hair.

"We have a spare room…" he said with no hints of any underlying emotion evident in his voice, though he was shaken she'd allowed someone, *anyone* to hurt her.

"No."

"Why not? All you have to do is hide the bruises, make small talk with my parents and stay the night…"

"Just for one night… I don't want to have to rely on you." She realised he might just offer the protection she so badly needed right now.

"I'm not exactly singing and dancing over it myself…"

She gave him a weak, passionless smile, believing deep down nothing had changed between them. He knew for all his intuitiveness something clearly had, in the way he was thinking *and* feeling about her…

*****

"I can't believe you actually cook." Lilah said from Lindsey's kitchen table, idly tracing her forefinger around the edge of an empty wineglass.

"I don't… Luckily or unluckily for you depending on your perspective- my parents have gone out. Of course you wouldn’t know because you were passed out on the bed at the time." He said, both anger and concern pulling at the corners of his voice.

"I wasn't passed out. I was sleeping."

"I remember Codeine knocks you out like that." Lindsey said, raising an eyebrow.

"And?" Lilah bit back surprised at his sudden intuitiveness.

"You must be in a lot of pain to be taking that."

"What do you care?"

"You obviously came here looking for my help." He said, waiting for the temperamental reaction he knew was bound to follow.

"You'd love that wouldn’t you? You'd really get a redemption-related kick." Lilah snapped predictably, feeling annoyed; though she couldn't place why.

"This isn't about getting a kick…"

"Then what is this about?" she asked him, as he put his lasagne in the oven.

He didn't reply only reaching up into the top cupboard producing cotton wool, a bottle of witch hazel and bandages.

"Dinner's going to be twenty minutes. Let me take a look at your wrist?" He asked gently.

"No."

"It could be broken."

"I can still move it."

"Fractured then… Let me bandage it…" he said, his persistence through obvious concern beginning to break down her insurgency.

"Since when did you graduate from med school? I'm surprised your parents would pay for another set of college tuition you'd just waste on second hand cars. Besides, I'm capable of doing it myself."

"So you're what? Going to wrap with your left hand and hold the other end of the bandage in place with your teeth? It's OK to ask for help sometimes." He said, frustrated at her.

She glared at him for a moment.

"It'll take two minutes," He assured her.

She rolled her eyes before nodding as he sat in the chair next to her, gently pushing up her sleeve.

"God, Lilah," he said, shocked on seeing the deep bruising again. "I'm taking you to a doctor tomorrow." He was worried, he realised. Her wounds looked forged in sex he recognised jealously… had she found someone else?

"I'm not wasting my insurance on this… I've been bruised before." She pointed out, a violent flashback crossing her mind of Gavin throwing her into the glass shelves of her office, feeling the pain of shards of glass slicing into her skin, she let a small shiver cross her spine.

"Like when?"

"Earlier this year. One of our clients had the power to make men get violent… Believe me a little redness around the wrist is nothing."

Lindsey smiled in sympathy his own mind flashing back to his early childhood and the countless bruises he'd received from his father. He remembered how painful it had been, how alone he'd felt and was suddenly angry again at the person who'd done this to her.

He poured witch hazel onto cotton wool and moved to gently run the liquid over her wrist, but she took it from him, carefully dabbing at the wound.

"At least my face didn't get touched this time." she remarked crisply.

He cautiously took her wrist in the palm of his hand as she closed her eyes bracing herself for pain.

"I'm not going to hurt you." He reassured her, pinning two ends of the bandage together beneath her thumb before winding it round her wrist, "Now let me look at your back…"

"In this scenario I'd rather keep my top on."

"I've seen it all before." He reminded her, half a smile crossing his mouth at the memory.

"Stop bringing that up, I can antiseptic myself." She snapped, willing herself to forget their previous tryst. She didn't deserve anyone as nice as Lindsey, she realised that now. On second thoughts maybe, she recognised harshly she didn't deserve anyone at all.

"You won’t reach, now stop acting like a six year old it'll take me two minutes."

She nodded in silent agreement following him through to the living room and over to the sofa, which he gestured to, instantly blaming herself for giving in to him yet again. God, Lindsey always had the ability to make her so weak, almost human.

She tentatively lay face down as he pulled up her top gently to examine the bruises. She shivered, nerves causing her body to erupt in goosebumps.

Lindsey pretended not to notice.

"God, Lilah," he said, looking at the vivid, blue bruising following the path of her spine and across her shoulder blades, "Who the hell did this?"

"I told you… no-one…"

"Boyfriend?"

"No…"

"One night stand?"

"I wish." She said sadly, an image of her boyfriend's angry, reproving face flashing across her mind's eye again.

"So it's casual sex. Like you and I were…" His emotions were on a real roller coaster tonight. And now he was right back to feeling jealous she'd been with someone else and angry that they'd had the sheer mordacity to hurt her. Why had she let them? When had she gotten so… weak?"

"It's nothing like us."

"Yeah, I never tried to break your spine, I know you like it rough but this is ridiculous!" he said, allowing furious emotion to flare in his eyes momentarily before returning to normal.

"I didn't ask for a critique of my sex life," she told him, angry he had the nerve to question her, reminding herself she was the one with the power here… at least in theory she was the one with the power here. Why was she letting him take over her like this?

He grit his teeth, refusing to rise to the bait, quietly drizzling witch hazel onto the bruises.

"I'm taking you to the doctor tomorrow if I have to drag you there kicking and screaming."

"It'll set you back a day on my car. That means another day I have to shell out on a hotel." She said, suddenly craving her own space.

"You’re staying here where I can keep an eye on you." He said, not bothering to mask the concern he felt for her in his voice.

"You can't keep me here! I'm not your prisoner." She said indignantly, unnerved at his sudden protectiveness, angry for him not being around to look after her sooner.

"True. But five bucks say you stay anyway." Lindsey said, giving her a sexy smile as he walked away to check on his lasagne and let her get dressed again…

*****

"Lilah?" Lindsey said, muting the sound of the old sixties movie when he heard banging in the kitchen at two a.m. no less. Did she have no respect?

"Yeah?" she said from the doorway, two aspirin and a glass of water in her hand.

"What are you doing?" he asked, mildly exasperated and slightly concerned at the same time, "I left two aspirin on the bedside cabinet."

"I took them, they did nothing, so I'm doubling the dosage."

"It's called overdosing," he said, getting up and snatching the pills and water away from her before she could protest, "For God's sake, Lilah you're like a child that needs constant watching."

"It hurts to move, it hurts any way I lie…" she told him openly in an uncharacteristic burst of honesty. She clamped her mouth shut after that, reminding of her promise nights ago to never be truthful with anyone ever again.

"The sofa's soft, sleep down here." He suggested, exasperated yet friendly at the same time.

"In pitch blackness listening to the cows and crickets outside?"

"If you're scared of a little chirping, leave the light on!" He laughed slightly; mentally trying to register the fact Lilah obviously had some deep-rooted childhood phobia of cicadas.

"Light attracts insects." She pointed out, knowing full too well the time her father had taken her to Kenya when she was seven and mosquitoes had invaded their tent.

"Come here… I'll see if I can make you more comfortable." He said with a sigh.

"To stretch out I’d have to put my head in your lap."

"And..?" He said grinning, enjoying his ability to tease and ruffle her so easily.

"I'm not here to live out one of your sick little fantasies."

"It's no fantasy, it's a nightmare. It'll help to align your spine, it'll help if you've bruised any of the vertebrae…" he said, mood cutting to one of irritation again.

"She sighed, complying and turning her body away from his, shivers of anticipation tracing her spine at being so close to him again. Maybe that's why she was co-operating. When he held her she realised she felt safe. And safe was what she needed to feel now.

"So what about when I fall asleep and you want to go to bed?" she asked him, irritated at herself for being so weak.

"I'll stay up."

"When did you get a personality transplant? Why do you care anyway?" she asked, his anxiety making her suddenly uncomfortable.

He didn't reply not knowing how to, simply picking up a pink throw from the arm of the sofa and laying it over her, not knowing why she'd brought about the sudden change in his personality.

"What are you watching?" she asked him, eventually to break the silence, hiding the fact she was moved by his new found compassion.

"I don't remember," he said truthfully.

Within minutes she was asleep, stirring comfortably against him, despite trying to fight her drowsiness. She felt tired, not having slept properly for months and then to suddenly feel so safe…

'Oh no, my life's not too complicated…' he thought, gently running a hand over her back.

Surprising himself by how fatigued he was now feeling he lay down on the sofa next to her, ensnared deep in memories caused by the feeling of her body pressed up against his again.

They may have shared everything physically but emotionally they still had a long way to go…