Seven months (1/?)

Author- Midnight Faith

Archiving- Ace of Harts, Friday Night Fever… anyone else that wants it just ask… I won’t say no I just like to know exactly where my work is…

Disclaimer- N-O-T M-I-N-E

Pairings- Lindsey/Lilah

Rating- PG-13 ish

Spoilers- 'Dead End'

Summary- Muchos angst. Lindsey returns to LA seven months after he left… Lilah's got a surprise for him… Kinda inspired by the current season 3 arc…

Starbucks on Alameda Street is like no other Starbucks in LA… like no other Starbucks in the world.

At least these were the thoughts of Lilah Morgan as she sauntered in on a moderately cool afternoon in early January a little late for meeting a friend. The Alameda street Starbucks was more than just a coffee house for her, more than a meeting place, more than a place to pick up a Cinnamon and Apple bagel on the way to work or at three a.m. when she couldn't sleep at night and guilt crept up on her like a black monster in the night. It was home. It held more memories than all of the various apartments she'd had put together across Los Angeles over her lifetime.

Ever since her parents had let her out by herself in the immense, broad urban canyons of Los Angeles she'd been inexplicably drawn to this particular Starbucks. Ever since she was fourteen years old, and she'd walked in, in her designer clothing, too shy and awkward to meet the tiny group of friends she'd made outside of her miniature private school and her chances of a date were minimal because of her general awkwardness, the place had felt like home. The home she craved with parents too absorbed in their work to pay any attention to their only child to care where she was a million miles from here.

Who would've thought that Lilah Morgan, late twenties, lawyer extroadinaire, who was drawn to chrome and scratched formica coffee houses would end up pregnant and alone in LA. She, who had it all, demanded it all and had her whole life ahead of her. Or maybe the coffee house crowd expected it the most… Lilah would be the first to fall from grace. Maybe it was only they, who knew who she really was, knew what she was really like. Maybe they had been waited with baited breath for Lilah to fall, been headed that way all of her life. Should've been when she was sixteen she just got lucky… and maybe this time she got ill fated. Taken advantage of once too often…

Lilah was grateful for the coffeehouse. Grateful for the haunted figures she'd seen for twelve years, same pairs of eyes staring up at her from their Los Angeles times or above their double espressos, stirring with plastic stirrers the instant remnants of their mocha beans long forgotten in their green polystyrene cups.

But most of all Lilah was grateful for old friends… particularly old college roommates.

Lilah knew she could always count on Kate Lockley. Against all of the odds they'd stayed friends for the six years they'd been apart in the same city. Opposite careers and opposite lives. They'd stayed in touch mainly by phone as if they were both ashamed and afraid of their friendship should their respective colleagues find out they were friends.

They hadn't seen each other for close to three years. Now there seemed no reason for hiding their friendship with Kate having been fired from the Los Angeles Police department and Lilah quitting her job at Wolfram and Hart to look after a child, as far as she was concerned had no father.

Now Lilah was walking through the door of her regular Starbucks to the sea of non-judgmental faces she knew so well though never spoken to, to perhaps the most judgmental face she knew.

Lilah was a little late as always, but she knew Kate would be there as Kate was always a little early.

She spotted Kate instantly. Her best friend sat at the corner table in a raised platform, staring out of the window at the LA smog, stirring her plain black coffee slowly.

Kate didn't notice Lilah until she slid into the high chrome stool opposite her.

Kate raised her eyes, a rare smile sliding into her features,

"Lilah," Kate said barely concealing the joy in her voice,

"Kate," The two women stood up to hug each other, and embraced awkwardly. Kate stared at Lilah's growing bump. Lilah put a protective hand down to it, and Kate slightly embarrassed and not knowing what to say to Lilah sat down and awkwardly poured a complementary packet of demerara sugar into her coffee.

"It's good to see you," Kate told her, stirring her coffee at a moderate pace not willing to meet Lilah's eyes

"You too," Lilah said quietly, tracing a crack in the formica with her finger.

"Your hair…" Kate said ungracefully, "Is almost blonde…"

"Yeah and yours… looks good. It's got the whole curly thing…"

"Sorry did you want a coffee or something?" Kate asked Lilah.

"No… I'm fine thanks," Lilah told Kate.

There was an unpleasant silence as Kate stirred her coffee and Lilah stared at the table.

Eventually Kate broke the silence.

"I'm glad you called me," she told Lilah.

Lilah looked up at Kate jubilantly

"You are?"

"You know I am."

"Kate… I was afraid to call you," Lilah admitted desperately.

"Why?" Kate asked her, her voice calm and level.

"I don’t know… I left it so long and then you were out of town… and things were…"

"You don't have to justify yourself to me," Kate said, touching Lilah's index finger lightly with her own, "We'll always be friends… you know that."

Lilah gripped Kate's hand tightly with her own,

"Thankyou…"

Silence stretched out in a long and winding road before them. They speechlessly stared at the table, tracing the formica rows across the table top like a ruby red road map.

"How are you feeling anyway?" Kate asked Lilah.

"Tired," Lilah said with a slight smile, "I don’t know. Better than I expected to feel I guess."

Kate didn’t know what to say to that. She shrugged her shoulders slightly to relieve the knots of tension that had been growing there since Lilah had called her last night and told her she was pregnant. Kate was having a hard time believing it even now with Lilah sat facing her.

"I suppose you want an explanation," Lilah said softly.

"I didn't want to push," Kate confessed,

"It's Ok," Lilah told her, "You're my best friend… you can ask me anything."

"Even the blindingly obvious?" Kate asked kindly

"Even the blindingly obvious," Lilah notified her

Kate hesitated for a moment drawing in a long breath. She couldn't explain her feelings. Her lungs burnt as if she didn't have the answers her lungs would starve of oxygen.

"Who's the father?" Kate asked her quickly. A wave of stratosphere hit her lungs and no matter how polluted the air was she welcomed it anyway.

"You mean do I know who the father is?" Lilah half clarified, half twisted.

"Well do you?" Kate asked a little bluntly, then collected herself and said, "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

"It's OK," Lilah said, "I do, I wish I didn't."

"Lilah, I don't believe if you chose to sleep with him he could be that bad," Kate told her confidently with a hint of optimism.

"It was a mistake," Lilah told her abruptly, as if it hurt to form the words.

Kate looked taken aback.

"Sorry," Lilah apologised, "He… was a mistake. A long term mistake." She took a deep breath. "We'd been sleeping together sporadically for six or so years. Whenever the mood hit us… or rather him we'd take of for some cheap motel. Now he's gone…"

"You told him and he took off?" Kate said with a hint of abhorrence in her voice, "Creep."

"No…" Lilah half defended… "He doesn’t know…"

"You know where he is?"

"No… he took off practically overnight actually… it all happened so fast. A month later I found myself pregnant."

A wave of empathy crossed Kate's face,

"Lilah, I'm so sorry…"

"Don’t be," Lilah said with half a smile, "I don’t need sympathy, that's not why I wanted to talk to you."

"You just… needed someone to talk to…"

"Maybe," Lilah said slowly… "It's like my whole life I've never needed anyone… That's why I've flitted from guy to guy my entire life and now… my whole life perspective has changed and I…"

"Resent it?" Kate half assumed half finished for her.

"Yeah…" Lilah realized.

"So you never thought… you never thought you could just get rid of it and get on with your life?"

Lilah shook her head.

"No, it was never even an option. I don't know… I just… denied it to myself I guess. I wouldn’t take a test. Every morning I'd wake up and convince myself it was just a horrible nightmare, the sickness was just stomach flu. Then… my clothes wouldn't fit… I guess I still haven't admitted it to myself… in seven weeks time I'm going to have a baby you know? A real life, kicking, screaming baby. I don't know how to take care of it! See. It. Not he or she. Sometimes I think of what to call… he or she. And I don’t have a clue." Lilah breathed in shakily and angrily.

"It's OK," Kate soothed though she knew it really wasn't.

"Does he have a name?" Kate said feeling a strong urge to know.

"Who?"

"The father. Do I know him?" Kate asked directly.

"You know him… I think," Lilah said circling the subject.

"How well would I know him?" Kate asked a little fearfully.

Lilah caught on to what she was thinking.

"Oh no Kate… this has nothing to do with Angel!"

Whenever the girls talked of Angel on the phone it had always been a shaky subject. They generally preferred to circulate or generally avoided the subject but this time Kate had asked about him directly and was glad she had. She exhaled, relieved.

"I would never…" Lilah began, "It's not him, no."

"I'm sorry," Kate said, feeling liked she'd apologised for the millionth time today, "I didn’t want to push it and then…"

"No it's OK…" Lilah told her, "You had to know and I'd rather we were honest with each other." There was another painful hush.

"I want to tell you who he is," Lilah informed Kate. Kate leaned forward over the table.

"You don’t have to…" Kate began

"No," Lilah said fleetingly, "I want to. It's…" Lilah breathed in unsteadily, "It's Lindsey."

"Lindsey McDonald?" Kate asked, surprised.

"Yeah," Lilah said breathlessly.

"I'm just… surprised… that's… that's all," Kate said trying to choose her words carefully.

"You don’t have to be careful of what you say," Lilah told her, "I know what you're thinking…"

"You do?"

"Not really, wanna tell me," Lilah asked almost impishly

"I thinking, 'my god! He's not Lilah's type at all. What was she doing sleeping with him.'"

"OK,"

"I mean… I really didn’t think it'd be him… in a million years."

"So you know him then…"

"Vaguely. I think I met him once… do you want me to bitch about him so you feel better?"

"I don’t think so…" Lilah reached into her sleek black shoulder bag, "I got this today."

"She handed a small brown envelope to Kate. She took it and began to read the letter inside.

"It's from Lindsey…" Lilah clarified as Kate's eyes skimmed the words.

"He's coming back to LA…"

"Is that good?" Kate asked.

"Part of me is happy," Lilah confessed to Kate, "My baby might actually have a father. Part of me is sick with dread at what he'll say."

"You haven't told him yet?"

"No."

"When's he coming?"

"Tomorrow."

"Oh," Kate said. "So no calling him,"

"He'll be half way across America by now…"

Lilah went back to tracing an imaginary route between Oklahoma and California with a trail of spilt salt over the vinyl of the table…

To be continued…