Lost in Translation
By Jaclyn // musicnotej@aol.com
01.12.04

Disclaimer: Not mine. Whedon's.

Timeline/spoilers: Right after Long Day's Journey (4.09). Continues to Cavalry (4.12). Alludes to events in Rain of Fire (4.07) briefly as well. The fic also assumes you have a basic understanding of what occurred in season four.

A/N: Inspired by the etymology of Lilah's name. Thanks to Lies [] for the Latin; thanks to Becky [] for the beta.

*

.01

They will have to release Angelus.

You are sure of this. It is the only way. You will search through every text; you will translate and transcribe until your fingers are smudging blood onto the pages of your notepad; you will prove to them, somehow, that you are right.

You know you are right.


.02

Virum fortissimum esse cupiens reperiet actio cordis in tenebris.

"He who wants to be a hero..." You mumble the translation to yourself as you copy it onto a yellow sheet of lined paper. "Will find the...verb? No," you scratch through the last word with a neat line of ink and replace it with a more accurate one, "will find the action of his...heart...in. Darkness."

You slump backward. Head lolling on the upper cushion, your eye catches on one of the other books littering your desk. It's open to a woodcut of Angelus in mid-rampage, wearing the night's darkness like a cloak and the blood on his hands like gloves of crimson silk.

People are going to die before this is over.

Into the stagnant air you pour the broken, worn-down pieces of yourself, shaped succinctly into swear words you've picked up from Lilah, who bandied them about with casual flippancy. Your father would strongly disapprove.

You aren't being proper.

But your apartment is empty; there is no reply.


.03

"And so," you conclude, "based on the available texts, it seems more and more likely that the Angel we've grown to trust is fated to revert to Angelus. His souled incarnation appears to be only a temporary suspension of his 'normal' life. An aberration; an unexpected abnormality at best. It was never meant to last this long, if at all."

"That's not good," Fred worries, stating the obvious. Jumpy and fidgety, she twists the edges of her sleeves.

"Well, I haven't finished going through the commentaries. Maybe I'll find some good news yet."

You try to decorate your voice with an upbeat lilt, but it ends up sounding like a fucked-up mimic of Fred's Texan accent. Fred shoots you a weird glance that you don't acknowledge, choosing instead to pack up your books and end the meeting. You have nothing more to say, anyway.

You'd forgotten how hard it was, pretending everything's all right for the sake of others. You didn't have to do that with Lilah. With Lilah, everything was harsh and vibrant and real.

But you coin pretty little lies for Fred, melt together small trinkets of hope. She is just a child underneath all that science, and you miss that innocence. You try to see the world through her eyes. You try to remember the prettier picture.

You are losing the big one.


.04

There is a tube of Lilah's favorite hand moisturizer lying abandoned on the other bedside table, the one that isn't yours. A small tube, mind you -- you know Lilah would never leave anything too permanent in your home; that wasn't how the game worked -- but you haven't been able to bring yourself to touch it, let alone move it.

You've been getting better about all this, though. This tangled web. You haven't thought about it in a while, and the loosely capped tube is starting to blend in with the rest of your room, bland as that crack in the wall, the one that's faded to seeming invisibility from the dull familiarity of it.

But you rolled over this morning and it was right there in front of you, the scent of Lilah before bed filling your nostrils. You used to wake up smelling like her; she used to cuddle up against you unintentionally once asleep, her creamy hands spreading the what was left of the lotion over your skin.

But it's better now. Much better (you were infected, you had a disease, and now you're--). You are yourself again, and there are no more traces of evil contaminating you, seeping through your pores while you dream.


.05

You stop by a used bookstore the next day, relaxing immediately into the yellowed atmosphere. Everything is musty, worn, safe. The unexpected has no footing here.

"Excuse me," you address the owner. Your voice crackles like ancient paper on the verge of tearing. "I'm looking for any information or commentaries you may have on the Heroticus text. Author unknown."

"Heroticus?" murmurs the older woman. She seems frailer than many of the books she surrounds herself with; you offer her your arm as she moves to a nearby bookcase. "Lot of controversy surrounding that one."

"Yes," you agree conversationally. "No one's really sure whether it was written with prophetic intent or simply as a work of speculative fiction. I have a copy of the Garatus commentary, but--"

"Dear boy," the woman says, patting the arm that's supporting her. "You do know that the Latin is merely a translation of the original Hebrew, don't you?"

Your mouth opens. The shopkeeper laughs, and the sound is as delicate as the flutter of Lilah's eyelashes when she doesn't want you to know she's lonely.

Pause.

What you mean is: when she didn't. You tell yourself you will try to be happier that Lilah's gone.

It's what you wanted.


.06

mi she'rotzeh l'hiyot gibor yimtzeh ahavah b'lilah.

It's so clear to you now. The action of a heart. Not a heartbeat, as you'd assumed (a tie-in to the Shanshu prophecies, perhaps?), but ahavah, love.

Whichever ancient Greek scribe translated this text had a very poor understanding of the language. Or possibly a sadistic streak. Why complicate what was -- is -- otherwise so simple?

He who wants to be a hero will find love in night. Not in darkness, but in lilah.

Lilah.

You, who wanted so badly to be the man your father wanted, slam the edges of the book onto the table and bolt out the door.


.07

"Lilah!" you scream. After over an hour running through the sewers, you've slowed to a jog as you call her name as loudly as you can. But the only answering sound is your own breath coming in harsh gasps, tense as the verbal equivalent of a clenched fist. "LILAH!"

You'd stopped at a drugstore on the way to the ruins of Wolfram & Hart; the bag of supplies you bought now bangs angrily against your leg. Bottled water, bandages, painkillers. You hope it will be enough.

Why is Lilah nowhere to be found? You were so sure--

(Was that a groan you heard, long and low and secretive?)

That this was the right--

(You run faster. Catch a glimpse of white.)

Place.


.08

You fall into a kneeling position over her body, and your hands are roving all over, trying to fix her, trying to soothe her, trying to convince yourself that she'll live to see tomorrow. Words are tumbling from your mouth like pebbles of anxiety; it shocks you to wonder if maybe they're hurting her, these rambling, fearful words of remorse.

Lilah does not make a sound, though her eyes lock on you keenly, dark with recognition. Your cheeks flush with shame, though you are -- finally -- strong enough not to look away.

"I'm sorry," you rasp. Lilah's expression is immobile, still as stone.

You broke the rules of engagement by storming the firm's building to rescue her from the Beast; you spat in her face by abandoning her mid-rescue. Why should she deign to talk to you? You: you who probably had more to do with her loss of faith in goodness than whoever pushed her to the precipice that is Wolfram & Hart in the first place.

But she laps up some of the water you offer; she allows you wrap her abdomen in a sterile temporary bandage; and most of all, she doesn't flinch away when you lift into your arms and carry her from the sewers to the different darkness outside.

You give Lilah an automatic pistol, just in case. It hangs limply in her hand, but you do not doubt that she'll summon the strength to use it should the need arise. All around you it is eternal lilah; there is no sun, and there are no guarantees.


.09

After your split with Angel, you started up your own practice, so to speak; by lucky coincidence, one of the men you fight the good fight with used to be a doctor. He found you through word of mouth after his wife became a vampire's after-dinner snack. As a fighter he is driven, determined.

You try not to think about the Justine parallels.

Instead, you direct your attention to Lilah, who still won't talk to you. Your worried gaze snaps easily under her withering one.

"I made a mistake," you say helplessly, as you have said so many times before: in the sewer, in the car, in the arduous stairwell leading to James Warner's apartment. "I know I did. I'm sorry."

She lets you hold her body upright against the side of yours, even rests her head on your shoulder, but she won't let you look her in the eye anymore when you apologize.

You are in an elevator in the heart of the Sheraton; a moment ago you'd booked a room with a king-size bed. Lilah had said nothing then, just watched the clerk type. She'd wrapped the smooth, unbroken stretch of her silence around her, and you wonder now whether this is post-traumatic stress or if Lilah's merely punishing you.

"I mean it," you add, as the elevator continues to rise. "I really do, Lilah; I do."

Lilah closes her eyes. The skin of your neck tingles as her eyelashes quiver like birds' wings.

You think, there was nothing in the prophecies about this part.

You think, they weren't really prophecies, you fool. Just excuses.

You stop thinking. Lilah is small and fragile and tough in your arms; you tighten the embrace and hold her like she means something.

She does. You think, maybe I have had enough of words for one night.


.10

"But how can I believe you?" she whispers some time later, wrapped in a newly washed, still-warm blanket you wheedled from room service. Her wound is freshly cleaned and bandaged (she didn't once scream), and an IV nutrient drip is on the way, courtesy of James Warner's underground connections.

You offered to give her a sponge bath now that you're safely in the hotel (which you hope has been chosen randomly enough to prevent detection by the Beast), but she said she's had enough help from you for one almost-apocalypse.

Lilah is staring at you expectantly, though there is nothing in her eyes resembling hope, only a wry sort of resignation. You don't know how to answer her question about belief. You can claim only so very little for yourself.

And Lilah knows this. And that's why she's expecting platitudes.

You sit heavily on the edge of the bed, leaving a good meter of space between you and Lilah. "This..." you sigh. "This is complicated. What we've gotten ourselves into. We were--" you bite your lip. "We had a bit of an affair. But I'm not--"

"Evil?" Lilah yawns. "Yeah, yeah. That's all you ever say, you know," she remarks. You take it for what it is: a surprisingly gentle prodding to remember you're talking to Lilah Morgan, not someone who needs her conversations sugarcoated. Not Fred.

"The glasses," you say abruptly, forcefully. Memory slams into you: it was so sunny that day, that day you threw Lilah's -- what was it? a mindgame? a not-so-subtle hint, a plea? -- back in her face and endeavored to paint her over with an ideal of sweetness and purity you now know doesn't truly exist in Fred either. You tried so hard to block out the look Lilah gave you as you used her more unabashedly than either of you had believed possible, and now the only recollection that's stayed clear in your mind is how lovely Lilah's hair looked that afternoon, framed by sunlight and glinting when she moved.

Quietly, you begin again. "Lilah. Lilah, I know I keep saying this and thus it's likely beginning to lose all meaning but--" A muscle in Lilah's jaw twitches. Your voice is lowered by a sudden, weighty despondency blossoming in you without warning. "I'm so sorry about the glasses. I didn't mean it, really. I was just...trying...to play the game. I thought that's what I was supposed to be doing."

She shrugs, voice laden with a calculated disinterest, the kind you are only beginning to hear as different from the real thing. "Whatever. I'm all shaky. IV drip almost here?"


.11

"You know what your problem is?" Lilah asks, tone only mildly confrontational.

"Oh, so you're talking to me again," you note dryly. You can admit -- if only to yourself -- that you're a bit put off by Lilah ignoring you after all this: all you've done, all you're going to give up. On the other hand, you did leave her lying alone in a sewer, drifting in and out of delirium, too weak to find food or more adequate shelter.

So yes, Lilah is giving you the cold shoulder. But you left her somewhere cold.

"Got bored. But don't change the subject. Your problem is that while rescuing me sounds all well and good as a thought alone in your head, once we hit the real world together, you don't know how to handle it."

And she's right, you know she is. You can't deny that the urge to touch her has grown past the sexual, that now just having her fingers twined in yours would seem like some kind of fulfillment, but when the two of you were in there with James you just didn't-- know--

Anything.

"I think it would probably be best if you just...drove me somewhere...else," Lilah says awkwardly. "My sister's in Idaho. It's such a middle-of-nowhere town that I'd probably be safe for a while 'til I figure out my next move."

You mangle something that was supposed to be "Okay" but comes out sounding muted, strangled.

"Thanks for what you did though," Lilah says softly. "But I'm...worth more than this. I get off on hate, yeah, but I don't...want to wake up to it every day. You understand that."

"Yes," you whisper.

Yes. No.


.12

"No."

She looks startled. "Excuse me?"

"No. Lilah. I don't...I..." You are going to have to make up your mind now. You are going to have to say it, admit it, make your peace with it. You are going to have to explain to Lilah that even though you're supposed to hate her, even though she's done despicable things, there is something in her that you just relate to. Something in Lilah draws you in, and you don't much care anymore whether it's something dark or light.

"Is this only because the world's ending?" Lilah says skeptically, ever the pragmatist. "And you don't want to be alone?"

"No."

"Is this only because the world's ending and you've finally realized morals won't help you save it?"

"No."

"Then what's it because of?"

Lilah's face is still a little dirty; the sponge bath she gave herself was only effective in the places she could see, and both of them know she's not yet ready to stand for the length of a shower. Her hair is disheveled, her clothes are filthy with sewage and slime, but oh god she's still Lilah, she's still Lilah, you can sense it, the twist of her lips and the arch of her left brow and the wry undertone with which she imbues her every word...

"Because of you." Your face reddens a little. Sweeping, romantic declarations stand out oddly when released into the air between people as shielded as the two of you.

But you mean it. It's the first thing you've really meant in almost as long as you can remember.

She's still Lilah, and she's done horrible things. It might, perhaps, follow that you become a horrible person by feeling this for her.

It might mean any number of things, but right now you refuse to care. You want only to tangle your fingers in her still-knotty hair and know that you are enough for her, that she trusts you while she sleeps.

You don't know how you'll make this work. You haven't thought that far. All you can think is Lilah, Lilah, Lilah.


.13

You bring Lilah to the Hyperion with you, wary of leaving her alone at the Sheraton while unable to defend herself against the hulking lump of rock that gouged out half her abdomen in the first place.

You figure the Beast is unlikely to come to the Hyperion just to kill Lilah. If he makes an appearance, the spectacle will be about Angel or no one at all.

Gunn postures, Fred twitters, Cordelia snipes, and Lorne cracks jokes that fall flat. Things move along.

You release Angelus. You lock up his soul, but the glass jar and its contents dissolve as quickly and as easily as the animosity you once held toward Lilah. Now there is only confusion. And more confusion: someone has stolen Angel's soul. No one could have stolen Angel's soul.

Nevertheless, it's gone, and Angelus is loose.

You try hard not to think of the woodcut in the book still lying open on your desk. You haven't yet been back to close it.

Angelus is loose. Is loose. Is loose.


.14

You are too late. You are always too late.


.15

All of this, for nothing. She is dead and you have failed her and why does Angelus get to keep the taste of Lilah forever on his tongue? What did he sacrifice to be allowed to keep her?

Perhaps the Greek scribe was right. Perhaps a heart's "action" doesn't refer to the physical heartbeat or the emotional heartstrings, as you had assumed were the only possibilities. Perhaps it means the alternative to both, the substitute for action.

Borrowed blood.

Will find the action of his heart in Lilah.

There's a sour taste in your mouth, layered a bit like despair. You did this. You drew Lilah to this. If you hadn't been so selfish, if you had just done what was right and stayed away from the evil lawyer who wasn't evil but just...shut down, in some way-- oh, don't you know you're no good at saving people? Haven't you learned? The Connor fiasco should have taught you that. If only you'd taken the lesson to heart--

Then Lilah wouldn't be lying here in a sludge of her own blood, skin pearl-pale and waxy.

You loved her, maybe. Or at least you felt something deep and wrong and painful for her.

But you killed her, too. You killed her.


END