Note: Song is 'That Day' by Poe.
//Tomorrow's coming 'round a
Hair pinned curve in the road
She's got a run in her stocking
And she's missing the heel of her shoe//
It was never meant to happen. Lilah knows this very well. Wesley is a White Hat, always and forever, at heart, regardless of what the outside says. Lilah is not. Lilah is not a black � mustached, gun � toting villain, either. It is simply that her interests � mostly money, power, sex, and getting what she wants � happen to quite often coincide with the interests of evil.
Wesley's interests and wants are very different. Wesley, she is sure, would like to get what he wants, but they both know that that will never happen and what Wesley wants is not something the world can necessarily give him.
Lilah likes to think about Wesley; he is a very dark, very sad man, and he is the kindest, most gentle person she has ever met.
Of course, with her, he is never kind nor gentle.
//Got up this morning, rolled out of bed
I spilled a diet coke
Called my mother, said "Hi,"
What I meant to say was," Why's your life a joke?"//
At first, she wanted to bring the badness out in him. She knew he had it lying in there � she'd assumed she'd never see it. Every human being has it � Lilah has seen it from the most gentle, affectionate people in the world. The moment that the shit hits the fan, the big blasting storm, where they bounce off the walls and throw vases and drink and bruise their loved ones, just because they're angry and just because they can. Lilah, working for Wolfram and Hart, has seen it a lot.
Losing Angel's son just happened to be that particular catalyst for Wesley. And Lilah took full advantage � because that is her job. Taking advantage of people and their emotions and using them for all they're worth, until they're useless to her, when her job is to throw them out, crumpling them up like a memo before she throws it in the trash.
And recently, Wesley has calmed down. There is less scratching, less spanking, less bruising during sex. There is less cursing from him, less drinking. He is certainly not the gentle man yet. Lilah does not know if he ever will be again, even if things are just as they were before Connor took that little hell � ride. But there is certainly a peace to Wesley � as though he knows he's all grown up, a big boy now, and he can stand alone without Angel.
Lilah has known this a while now. She doesn't know when she found out � perhaps sometime between screaming his name the third time she came to his bed, or perhaps it was when she asked him where Angel was � but she knows it.
//Then I went down to that ugly bar
And I clicked my heels three times just like you said
And I climbed that road to your empty house
The anticipation was a turn on,
But you let me down//
She has been less organized lately. It used to be she knew the moment her feelings changed, the moment something was different. But this happened gradually.
'This' being falling in love with Wesley.
At first, she chuckled to herself, because she had taken advantage of a broken and careless man, and she had taken that little thrill ride that she gets every time she puts herself in the slightest bit of danger. As their affair progressed, she stopped referring to him in her head as 'Angel's Wesley' and he became 'Wes'. Somewhere along the line, she started appreciating his body for something other than his penis. Then, she began to have conversations with him after bed, and she didn't have a problem with the fact that she was talking to what was her enemy, in frankly literal terms. Then, she began to enjoy talking to him, enjoy being near him. Then, she began to think about him outside the bedroom. And then, she began asking herself, 'What would you do for this man?' and began to get used to answering her own question with, 'Everything,'
She decides, finally, that she grew to love him in pieces: first she loved his brain because it was what she knew best of him, then she loved his penis for the way he used it, and she loved his fingers for the things he did with them, then she loved his mouth for his kisses, and she loved his eyes because they saw her, and then she loved his body because it was beside her in the bed, she loved his face because it was there, and last, she loved who he was, because it was him.
So Lilah is very sure of the how.
//'Cause I stood on that empty stoop alone
I said, "I'm ready for my close up now, Mr. Demille,"
I waited for the light but it never shown//
But what she has not gathered is the why. Why this has happened to her. Why this has occurred now of all times, when everything in the world about to crumble and when her life is slowly trailing into a downward spiral and when Wesley has basically gone back to Angel and company.
Above all, Lilah is a lawyer. She has always thought like one: how to get out of a situation, alibis for where she was during the situation, speeches prepared in the back of her mind to prove her innocence, a silent knowledge that she is not innocent.
And contracts. Lilah is very good at contracts.
In her head, she drew up a contract, the first time she slept with Wesley, and at the time, she thought it was ridiculous. There was no reason for her to do this, other than she was a lawyer, and this is the way that lawyers think:
The first party (me) will not be reimbursed in anyway for the services rendered to the second party (him). The second party (him again) and the first party (me again) will maintain a mutual attraction with mutual dislike. The first party (still him) and second party (that's me) will not have anything in common despite a particular appetite for self destruction. The second party will not be expected to join the first party's side, and the first party will not be required to join the second party's side, but will be accepted most likely if she does.
The ways out of the arrangement of the two parties are used through clauses (A) the first party deciding to delete said arrangement between the parties or (B) the second party rejoining the his previous arrangement and thereby making current arrangement between the two parties null and void, or (C) the two parties parting with agreement on both sides.
//Well I wonder what you'll do
With that expensive piece of land
That overlooks a billion years of history
I have a sneaking suspicion you will never understand//
Love was never meant to be involved, in any way, shape, or form, on either side. Wesley is in love with Fred. Lilah is in love with Lilah and her expensive lifestyle. That is the way things were, and it was understood on both sides that that is how it would stay.
And Lilah violated her own damn terms.
She has been hurt many times, but never in a situation such as this � a situation where she is meant to be in control and she is supposed to be the one on top. She was fucking Wesley. Wesley was not fucking her.
Supposedly.
But now, she is seriously beginning to doubt that, and wondering exactly how long they have both known that he was in control.
//Hey, maybe I'll see you down by the Rocky and Bullwinkle
And we can talk to that Charlatan psychic
And she can paint a prettier picture
Of your future//
Lilah looks into her drink, and realizes that it is the brand of scotch he drinks, and throws the glass, very angrily, across the room in disgust, and takes particular satisfaction when it shatters and the shards land on the carpet with several little stabbing thuds.
She is very proud, and always has been, and has always admired the dignity of herself. But she is falling apart over a man � a man she does not want to love or even like at all � and that is simply not acceptable.
After he terminated their agreement �which was not an agreement and was just you and him and sex and attraction and wasn't termination was getting dumped � Lilah returned to her office, and took the candid photographs of him, taken by hidden cameras planted by Wolfram and Hart in Angel's office, and ripped them into many tiny pieces. She was immediately angry with herself afterwards, and thought of how absurd it would be to tape them apart, and reassured herself that she still had the background reports anyways, and that the pictures were very out of date and were not of her Wesley, but were of a slightly incompetent fool who had never guessed at what he was getting into and who had been half in love with Angel.
The background reports she used to read, pleased to discover all his trials and mishaps and mistakes. Buffy and Faith, torture at the latter's hands, his very public relationship with the rich and famous Virginia Bryce, and the recently updated reports of losing Connor � they all made her smile with resentment and pleasure at his many personal failures.
And it's very disappointing to her that they don't anymore make her smile anymore, and instead she feels bad for him and even slightly endeared of his blind loyalty - that through all this, he hasn't turned to the Dark Side or betrayed Angel before.
//It's that day
In my life
That day
In my life//
Lilah had considered, in no seriousness at all, going to Wesley and offering to help him fight evil, to be the good girl for once� but she knew that it was just a little joke she was playing with herself, because she could never do that, and even if she could have, she still wouldn't have.
She even, for a short time contemplated finding that little skirt and blouse she'd worn for Wesley, and getting back the glasses, and braiding her hair, and just showing up on Angel's doorstep, and staking a vampire right there for them.
But Lilah wouldn't do that. Because that wasn't her.
//I dreamt tomorrow had a prettier face
I dreamt tomorrow would have better things to say
Than, "You look like shit. What's your problem, bitch?
Your legs feel like sandpaper, you can't do anything right,"//
In the end, Lilah knows: she wants Wesley and Wesley doesn't want her, and Fred is Wesley's epitome � of � all � good, and is they symbol of everything Wesley knew and wishes he knows again.
Lilah is just the dirty lawyer, the cheap and evil girl that he goes to when the calm's gone, he has nothing left, and when no one else will have him.
And Lilah knows and is disgusted: she won't send him away, even when she's just a last resort.
//'Cause that day never should have taken place
This day in my life
Still cannot explain
Why I listened in the first place
To you
Oh yeah, something else
I hope one day you call up your father
And you have the guts to tell him how he hurt you
And how he made you hurt another
'Cause it makes me sad//
End