Silver Cloud, Bitter Lining (4/?)

Author- Midnight Faith

Spoilers- none

Distribution- FF.net, AOH anyone else just ask :)

Pairing- Lilah/Lindsey

Rating- R

Summary- Lilah talks to Cordy

Disclaimer- not mine… yadda, yadda

Notes- sequel to 'Southern Comfort.' You'll probably want to read that first…

"Did you sleep OK?" Dawn asked Lilah when she entered the kitchen the next morning.

Lilah took the seat next to Cordy at the breakfast bar across from Buffy and Willow eating pancakes draped in maple syrup.

"Not really…" she told them, rubbing the back of her neck, trying to stretch out stiff and tired muscles.

"It's probably just the unfamiliar place," Buffy told her sympathetically, "You'll get used to the strangeness of our ways soon…"

"How are you feeling?" Cordy asked her, a little intensely.

"Like I swallowed a lead weight," Lilah told her with a smile, "New place combined with exhaustion," she offered by way of explanation to Buffy, Dawn and Willow, "I just had one of those nights where you dream but you barely know you're dreaming… it was weird…"

"What did you dream about?" Willow asked her, "I took physch 101. We did dream analysis…"

"It was mostly about green, radioactive goo…" Lilah told Willow, "No more X-files before bed right Dawnie?"

"I'm not letting you watch it again since you said Doggert was hotter than Mulder…" Dawn told her teasingly.

"I didn’t say that… I just think Doggert's voice is sexier… that's all… there's something about New Yorker's…" Lilah sighed.

"No way is Doggert hotter than Mulder," Cordy chipped in, "Doggert's just… orange."

"I think Doggert plays a good part," Willow offered, "He's rational guy… it's important to have a sensible person in the mix… Mulder was all like 'I'm spooky and weird…'"

"But it's also important to have a spooky, weird, slightly supernatural one in the mix as well right?" Buffy asked a little self-consciously.

"It's also important to have a Mulder," Dawn reassured her.

"I'm sorry, did you want me to grab you some breakfast?" Buffy asked Lilah.

"We didn't know what you would want so we hit the seven eleven early and picked up a whole bunch of stuff," Dawn explained, "We got bagels, doughnuts, waffles, cereal…"

"I don’t think my stomach's up for solids…" Lilah said a little awkwardly.

"We have coffee…" Buffy offered, "or tea… if you want a drink from the land of Wesley…"

"How is Wesley anyway?" Willow asked.

"He's good…" Cordy told her.

"Can I just have water?" Lilah asked Buffy.

"Sure… one glass of water coming right on up…" Buffy said, getting up, filling a glass with water from the faucet and handing it to Lilah.

"Thanks," Lilah smiled gratefully.

"Are you sure that's all you want?" Buffy asked Lilah.

"Yeah, I'm fine with this thanks," she said, staring into the bottom of the glass.

"So… do you have plans for today?" Willow asked Cordy.

"I figured I'd better go see Mum and Dad… and then any of the old gang I could look up… maybe Aura…"

"What about you, Lilah?" Buffy asked.

"I figured I'd pretty much tag along with one of your guys or steal Cordy's car and drive up to Neiman Marcus… this of course is last night's plan when I actually felt half healthy…"

"You can come to work with me…" Buffy offered, "Except my work does actually involved eight hour shifts at the Doublemeat place…"

Lilah grimaced.

"Exactly," Buffy said, "Not the number one location if you're feeling all breakable…"

"Or you could come to class with me…" Willow offered, "Except I have drama first period and sometimes there's running…"

"No it's fine, I'll stay here… possibly catch up on some sleep…" Lilah told them.

"I don’t want to leave you if you're sick…" Dawn said, "I have a huge sociology project that maybe I could stay home and work on and you could help me with…"

"It's OK… I'll stay with her…" Cordy told Dawn, "My 'blissful' reunion with my tax extortionist parents can wait…"

"I don’t need a babysitter," Lilah told Cordy, feeling a little annoyed, "You can leave me by myself you know… I am not five years old… I'll be fine once I'm curled up on the sofa with QVC…"

"No I want to stay with you today…" Cordy told her, "I figured we could maybe talk… about some stuff…"

*****

"Do you feel any better?" Cordy asked Lilah.

"Not really…" she told her.

"So the fresh air isn’t helping any?"

"It's highly over-rated," Lilah said, with a faint smile.

"Well if you want we can go for a drive… or whatever… change of scene or highway five… I'm flexible… I thought maybe you'd want to talk or something…"

"Not really. Talking turns things into reality. And I'm liking denial land right now…"

"Lilah, please don’t bottle everything up. I'm your friend but I can’t help you unless you tell me what's going on…" Cordy told her with genuine emotion.

She watched Lilah's knuckles turn white as she gripped onto the chains of the swing.

"I didn’t know everything came in child's size," Lilah said, referring to their surroundings of the children's playground, barely a block from Revello drive, where they were both perched on the swings.

"Have I really been that shut off from the real world?" Lilah asked Cordy.

"No… it's because we live in LA… if we saw a blade of grass in that city we'd freak and die…"

"I love the country…" Lilah mused, "But I love LA more…"

"So you're coming back then?"

She nodded.

"LA's home… even if I have no-one to keep me there and the only work I can get appears on E! True Hollywood story…"

"That's not true… You've got everyone back at the hotel and we all love and miss you… The place feels so empty without you… it's like the heart's been ripped out or something… and you'll always have a job and a place to stay and someone to talk to…"

"I've never been promised that before…"

"What?"

"The 'someone to talk to' part. Having friends to look out for me…"

"And I just want to help you but I can't if you don’t tell me anything… are you ready to talk?"

Lilah nodded and they got up from the swings and walked slowly over to the wooden bench in the shadow of an azalea tree.

"You'll feel better… honestly," Cordy told her.

The silence seemed to stretch out before them.

"OK maybe I should start," Cordy said taking a deep breath, "I know you don’t have stomach flu. I don’t think the hurling this morning was any coincidence… so I guess what I'm trying to say is you didn't get rid of the baby did you?"

"I wanted to… I really did… I mean I borrowed my sister's car… I told her I needed some retail therapy and drove into Reno and went to a clinic and had a scan. Standard procedure apparently… I didn’t look I just couldn’t. And they told me I was sixteen weeks. I had no idea I was that far gone… well I guess I did I just… I don’t know. They asked me, for all their tact and diplomacy if I wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl… which I really didn’t at the time but wish I knew now… They told me to come back the next day for the 'operation.' They actually called it an operation but you only have operations when your sick right? I guess that was better than 'come back tomorrow so we can murder your kid.' They said it would only last twenty minutes and that I'd be out of there in an hour. So I figured I'd just call a cab and no one would ever know… So I did and got to the front door… and even though I'd walked through them the day before… I just couldn’t. I mean I just physically couldn’t. So I turned around went back to my hometown and acted like nothing had happened…"

Lilah looked into Cordy's eyes pooling with tears.

"You really couldn’t?" Cordy asked, her voice laced with emotion.

"What gives me the right to destroy a heartbeat?"

"Where will you live?" Cordy asked her.

"I don’t know… I'll find something…"

"What about work?"

"Something'll turn up… if not freelancing…"

"What about everyone? Me, Angel, Connor… are you going to walk right into our lives and waltz right back on out again? I don’t want you to be alone with a baby as vulnerable as you are in a city like LA…"

"I'm not all vulnerable… I'll survive…"

"But you don’t need to survive… you need to live… come back with me. We'll decorate on of the rooms in the hotel… on of the bigger ones near Angel… we can convert part of it into a nursery… and have a kitchen with a microwave and a fridge…"

Lilah smiled at Cordy.

"That's a very beautiful dream…"

"But it sounds do-able right?"

"Not really…"

"Come on Lilah… give me some positive here…"

"I think the guilt of living in the same hotel as both Lindsey and Fred might just kill me…"

"OK so come and live with me until something comes up in my block or nearby…"

"And how likely is that?"

"Positive Lilah, remember positive."

"Remember my denial phase… I'm back to that… We had our little heart to heart… I'm keeping the baby unless I can find the strength to call the clinic, book another appointment and actually go through with it this time which is highly unlikely as I can’t even find the energy to lift a spoon right now… so anyway… what's going on in LA without me?"

"Not a lot… everything's way slow. The court case destroyed that whole public image thing we so foolishly bothered to build up for the last three years… Oh but Angel thinks Connor might start crawling this week… he's kinda gutted we won’t be there to see it…"

"And Fred?"

"She's fine… Lilah… Lindsey asked me to give you a message. It's cryptic but he told me you'd understand… the message is 'I love you, I'm sorry and I didn’t mean what I said…'"

"Thankyou…"

"Am I gonna get an explanation?"

"No… me and Lindsey are through… that's all you need to know…"

"Not even…"

"No. This isn’t his second chance, his third chance or even his tenth. He's let me down too often now… no more second chances… not this time…"