Lilah stepped outside, through the main entrances of Wolfram and Hart. For once, she was not worried about taking the stealthy back entrance. People had other things on their mind, even those that could threaten her. She left her car in the garage.
She stood there, on the edge of the street, watching the people who watched the sky. No one else seemed to be able to take their eyes off of it. Lilah didn't even bother to smile at the fear she saw on their faces.
Turning, Lilah walked down the street. There was little question in her mind where she was headed. She looked straight ahead, seeing the faces of the people that saw only flame and death, plummeting from the heavens.
More than once on the way, she heard someone mutter "the end of the world" and clutch fearfully to a warm body. How often had they survived the end of the world and not even known it? Lilah knew. She knew, and she remembered their faces as the lips formed the words; lit by the orange flame in the sky as it rained terror on the city. Her city.
Cars stood, unused, in the middle of the streets. Their drivers and passengers looked only up, not forward. They were in no shape to drive. Few were even in a shape to walk, and Lilah was forced to dodge them as they fell to the streets in awe.
Somehow she had managed to make her journey unhindered by the rain of fire; it didn't touch her. Yet as she slowed to a halt, a small ember landed on her shoulder. Cooled by its solitary journey down through the night's sky, it took a moment to burn through Lilah's jacket and to her shirt below. She didn't brush it off, even as it penetrated to the flesh beneath the clothes and seared a small wound into her.
When the pain stopped, she walked into the Hyperion.
It had been a surprise: seeing Fred in the lobby. The girl hadn't been crying, just sitting and looking at the doorway as if she were expecting someone. Lilah almost thought that Fred had been expecting her, but that was ridiculous. Then again, the drive to come to this place had been fairly ridiculous also. Lilah couldn't quite remember who or what she was looking for here.
"What are you doing here?"
Fred just crossed her arms over her chest as she replied. There was no look of horror, no look of fear or disgust. No look of hatred. "I live here."
Lilah couldn't decide if she was disappointed by the stoicism. "I'd think you would be out with the rest of the light brigade."
"Wesley is."
Lilah paused, sighed, and moved further into the building. "I know."
"I'm not."
And it happened as fast as that. Two words, two steps, and Fred had reached Lilah and surprised the lawyer with her violence: threading her small hands in Lilah's hair, pulling their lips together for a crushing kiss.
Lilah's first reaction was surprise. Of all the people to be trying this, Fred was the last she would expect. But it was a night for surprises and change and for clinging to the warmest body you could find. It was a night of omens and fire and... and God Fred's hands felt good as they explored beneath Lilah's shirt, eliciting a moan from the taller woman and a plea of "more" as their lips broke apart.
Fred looked up into Lilah's eyes as if she were trying to see something important there. As if she were searching for the one ounce of good that would make it okay to take Lilah upstairs and spend the night with this woman who was the enemy. The Enemy.
Lilah knew what Fred needed to see. She knew that Fred wanted the inherent goodness that she believed was buried in every person, no matter how misguided they may be. Part of Lilah didn't want to give the girl the satisfaction of being proven right, but another part just wanted to know what Fred tasted like, and if she was a screamer, and if she'd be as good as her hands promised.
So, Lilah gave Fred what she wanted. She delved deep into her memory and brought forth her childhood: when she was happy and young and when the world was a good place to be in. When she had loved to sit for hours beneath a willow tree and watch the birds nest, or take in the sweet smell of the grass just after her father had cut it. Memories of summer and her father. She missed her father, and let that show in her eyes too: the longing for that connection she had lost so long ago. Longing and love and life, and Lilah. She let everything bleed through for Fred, and didn't know why.
And something happened in the process.
Something that burned from the inside out, and left a new Lilah behind.
But she didn't have time to notice it because, apparently, Fred had made up her mind and was now insistently tugging Lilah upstairs. As far as Lilah was concerned, everything was still the same in life, except now she was going to get a nice Fred-sized treat.
The room they went into was almost bare and Lilah knew that it wasn't the one Fred shared with Gunn. Fine. Lilah would make her own mark. Fred wouldn't be able to pass by the room without blushing, and Lilah grinned at the thought.
Fred turned, as if she had felt the grin, and looked silently at Lilah for a moment.
"What?"
"Nothin'." And Lilah knew it was a lie. "Are you doing this... to hurt Wesley?"
Lilah smiled, predatory. "Are you doing this to hurt Gunn?"
Fred shook her head quickly as if she were a child being accused of something unthinkable. Any response she might have offered, though, was silenced by Lilah's lips. She didn't want to hear what Fred had to say, because she was afraid it would mean too much.
And so, entwined, they fell to the bed. It was a matter of only a few buttons before Lilah's impatience broke through and she tore Fred's shirt from the small body beneath her. That was fine, though, as Fred had already managed to pull off both Lilah's jacket and blouse and was planting quick but fierce kisses over her neck and shoulders.
Within moments, they each delighted in the feel of skin on skin. Lilah's thigh pressed down, between Fred's legs, but she was momentarily surprised - again - when Fred nipped at her neck and effortlessly rolled them over, putting the smaller woman on top as they moved against each other.
"Mine," Fred explained, as if it were the universal answer. Lilah didn't understand, didn't want to understand. There was only this moment, of ecstasy, as Fred trailed wet kisses down her throat and chest, placing butterfly touches of lips upon each nipple before gently biting them. Lilah arched her back, crying out wordlessly for more.
Fred obliged. She traced a line down to Lilah's navel and beyond, dipping her tongue in to taste the very essence of Lilah, and it tasted sweet.
"You taste like pancakes."
Lilah opened her eyes. She was on her stomach. There had been a dream about...
"Blueberry syrup on top."
No, not a dream then. Lilah rolled onto her side and looked at Fred. "Thank you?"
Fred smiled in a devastatingly innocent and charming way, and Lilah couldn't help but smile back. Wait a second. Lilah Morgan did *not* smile in any way other than evilly. What exactly was going on?
"Was I what you expected, Lilah?"
"What do you mean?" The smile was still on Lilah's face, and she'd begun to trace a gentle line down Fred's arm.
"I think," Fred started, but paused to take Lilah's hand and place it on her hip, "that I knew that if I waited long enough, I'd get what I wanted. That everything changed tonight, and that's why it was you that walked in the door and not Charles. Why something's been wrong since... why something's been just downright wrong."
"Oh, I get it, that's why it was you I found and not Wesley."
Fred looked at Lilah through hooded eyes and long lashes and nodded shyly. Lilah marvelled at how Fred could still be shy after a few hours of some very serious sex. Maybe it was love making. Or maybe it would be, some day soon, because Lilah certainly seemed to be on a crash course towards loving Fred, at least a little.
That fact, above anything else she had seen tonight, scared her. "I have to go..." she began to push away, but Fred held her firm in bed, surprising Lilah yet again.
"Like summer." Fred interrupted, causing Lilah to pause in the process of finding her clothes. "You taste like summer."
Lilah let herself fall back onto the bed. "I wish I knew what was going on here."
Fred placed her hand on Lilah's shoulder, pressing her palm into the small wound that had been burnt their earlier that night, as Lilah stood outside the Hyperion, on the edge of change without even knowing it. Or maybe she had. The small woman pulled Lilah close and whispered once again: "Mine." before replacing her palm with her lips, pressing them softly against the burn.
Lilah closed her eyes and remembered summer and her father. She thought of everything that had changed and everything that would change if she didn't stand up this instant and walk out of the room.
She didn't move a muscle.