This Is The End Of A Story Which No One Remembers Because It Never Happened
This is the end of a story which no one remembers, because it never happened.
Unless it did, which is an entirely different ball of wax, but it probably didn't.
After all, only one person on the face of the planet actually remembers any of it happening. And he only exists through some freaky and impossibly simple sequence of events which are, scientifically speaking, completely impossible.
Scientists like to say things like that.
So do lawyers, incidentally, although they wouldn't have any problem taking his money anyway.
The person in question is, in fact, a lawyer. There are many people still around who remember her, of course, because she's a memorable kind of lawyer and, after all, she was around before this story began.
It's really too bad she was such a horrible person. Some people just enjoy being evil and, well. It doesn't generally lead to happy afterlives.
Of course, she knew full well where she was headed. She even had a contract. Where she is now is a bit of a question, because she doesn't appear to be around the law offices of Wolfram & Hart just at the moment despite whatever indefinite clauses or whathaveyou may have been hidden in the contract she signed. But it is a well-known fact that when you sell your soul to the devil, the only place you're going after death is straight down into the roiling Inferno. Interesting that so many people seem to forget about that part.
Not Lilah Morgan.
She simply didn't care, you see.
Lilah Morgan did not have a happy life, but this was largely preferential on her part and did not spring from some deep-seated well of emotional psychoses, which is probably why no one ever quite managed to redeem her.
She was not the kind of sadistic villain that many of her coworkers were, but she regarded their behavior with the same distaste a surgeon might have for a butcher. She enjoyed the results of their labors and had no issues with either the ends or the means, but saw it as menial labor and didn't particularly want to actually give it a try. You see, Lilah Morgan was above petty abuse.
Lilah Morgan killed people.
But she did it so slowly, and so carefully, that she always got away with it and never, ever had to get her hands dirty. It took years, sometimes. But it got done. And in the meantime they had their hands full fending her off, and couldn't get into any mischief. That's the W&H Way. They like to take their time. There's a reason they don't bother with hitmen. Well, often, anyway.
And now Lilah Morgan was in Hell.
It wasn't all that dissimilar from her life up top, honestly. She had an office with a view of other offices. It had air conditioning and a wall covered in file drawers. She had to share a secretary, but she dealt with it. She was in Hell, after all. She wondered occasionally why it wasn't worse.
She welcomed Cordelia first. Apparently the Powers didn't exactly approve of the whole evil thing even when it was unclear just how it had come about. Lilah had been convinced the Powers were behind it anyway, but they weren't all that adept at covering up. If it had been Lilah she'd have just eroded Cordy's credibility, not that would have taken much work, and let her run around spouting whatever she wanted to. But the Powers weren't evil, so they just sent her to Hell instead where they wouldn't have to watch her pine. The irony of this escaped no one.
Cordy was a little shy at first, undoubtedly because of the whole killing Lilah thing. After a few years in Hell, though, anyone you know from up top is worth a visit. They even had a brief, uninspired attempt at sex, although neither of them were all that interested and the novelty wore off quickly.
The second one down was Wesley.
She should have expected that. She really should have. But she didn't, and it came as a shock, and she was still under contractual obligation and it took her nearly two weeks to find the time to go visit him.
"Lilah Morgan," he said, when she finally found him, somewhere in Limbo, nancing about with the virtuous unbaptised or whoever. "I thought I'd find you down here sooner or later." He was different. Defensive. He seemed to be anticipating some kind of attack.
Lilah Morgan was not one to disappoint.
She lurched against him and kissed him hard, biting his lip until she tasted blood. She hadn't known how much she missed this. The taste of Wesley, musty tomes and fresh sweat and just the barest hint of violence. Mmm.
Then she felt the blade against her stomach.
"Get off, or I can't promise not to use this," Wesley spat out, around her teeth. She laughed and bit harder, hands roaming to rediscover familiar territory.
The knife pressed into her. It was sexy, in a way. But something wasn't right. There was nothing seductive about the knife; it was just a knife, and it was being used like a kinfe. And Wesley wasn't kissing her back.
No, something's definitely wrong with that picture.
She let go and rocked back on her heels, studying his face. He knew her face, of course. That much was obvious. But there was no hint of recognition in his eyes.
Wesley didn't remember.
She turned and wordlessly trudged back to her hellish office. She'd known she was going to Hell. She'd thought she could beat the system, because Lilah Morgan could survive anywhere.
You sell your soul, you go to Hell. That's how it works. Most of the time you end up floating face-down in goo or stretched on a rack for eternity, which can't be fun. Sometimes you might even end up frozen in ice down near the bottom, or engulfed in eternal hellfire. That's the Hell everyone's familiar with, the Hell everyone, including Lilah, had been expecting.
But Lilah Morgan sold her soul to Wolfram & Hart, and they like to take their time.