Lilly's a little surprised when she gets let into Heaven. Not surprised that she's dead. After being, y'know, brutally attacked and everything, she'd be kinda worried if she wasn't dead. No, Lilly is surprised that she made it to Heaven at all. Cos, y'know. The whole lying, and cheating, and generally being a bitch thing. Oh, and all the pre-marital sex. There was a lot of that.
It's quite a while before Lilly can work up the courage to ask someone about it. She doesn't want to ask one of the saints, or the angels – cos if she's not meant to be here, and she's really sure she's not, she doesn't really want anyone important to find out that there's been, y'know, a mix up in the system.
"Mitigating factor," says Mary, the woman that Lilly asks. Mary is Scottish, or Irish, or something, and must've died a while ago cos her dresses are pre any fashion era that Lilly's ever heard about. "I'm no barrister, but I'm given to understand that if you have committed sins and repented, or if it is believed you had good reason for sinning, you are still allowed to enter the Lord's Kingdom." She sees Lilly's blank face and attempts to explain further. "I believe," says Mary carefully, "that whether one is sent to Heaven or Hell depends on one's disposition." Lilly thanks her and wanders away, wishing that Veronica or Duncan were here to explain exactly what Mary was talking about, cos she sure can't figure it out by herself.
After a while, Lilly decides it's totally not worth worrying about and just assumes that she must've fluked her entrance exam, same way she used to fluke her math exams when she was alive. She settles nicely into Heaven, making friends as easily as she always has, spending time cajoling the other dead girls into letting her give them make-overs and trying to flirt with the overly-serious angels. She meets people she'd only ever learned about at school, and is so awe-struck when she meets Marilyn Monroe she can barely stammer out a hello. Being dead becomes kinda routine.
Then one day, Lilly has the shock of her life- well, OK, shock of her death. She's sitting on a park bench, leafing through a back issue of Cosmo, when she glances across and sees there's a guy by himself on the swing set, just sitting there, staring down at his feet. At first she just passes him off as another confused new arrival, but then he lifts his head and she recognises him. It's Dick's little brother! It's Beaver Casablancas!
She reaches him in an instant and flings her arms around him, happy to see a familiar face. She's babbling a million questions before she looks at him, really looks at him, and realises there's something off about him. Well, OK, so there was always something a little off about Beaver Casablancas, but this looks like it's a great big off. "Uh," Lilly starts, "what's wrong?"
The expression on his face is heart breaking. "I'm not supposed to be here," he whispers, "I'm not – I did bad things, terrible things. I shouldn't, I can't – I'm not supposed to be here. Why am I here?" And Lilly feels like he can't really see her, that he's staring back down to Earth, thinking about whatever the terrible things were that he did. For a moment Lilly doesn't know what to say to him – she's never really been the sympathetic type – but then she remembers her conversation with Mary.
"Mitigating factor, Beav," she tells him, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar words. Beaver's expression changes, like he understands what she's talking about, or something (and as soon as he settles in, Lilly's totally going to ask him what it means.) Then his eyes focus properly on Lilly, and his face twists into a look of surprise.
"Lilly!" the boy exclaims. "But you're dead! Oh…" and Lilly giggles as she watches the realisation slowly dawning on Beaver Casablancas' face.
