Such Great Heights (Come Down Now)
"So, your gig seems kind of crappy, especially for a big shot lawyer," said Lilah's new ward as they drove toward Wolfram and Hart's temporary headquarters in Long Beach. Lilah was still in disgrace over Angel's attempted destruction of Wolfram and Hart's Earth structures, and thus was required to do things like search and retrieve blonde cheerleaders too dumb to realize they were dead and buried. It beat being stuck in a third world dimension, but not by much. Especially given the girl had been in San Diego County and that meant Lilah had to drive across Orange County. On the 5 to the 710. During rush hour.
Miss Lilly Kane, deceased, seemed not to realize that it was her fault that Lilah's job sucked today, and was chattering nonstop over the radio, which was stuck on KIIS 102.7 because Lilah's stations, according to Lilly, were boring and old and Ashlee Simpson was clearly much better than Mozart. "Who the hell wants to have a job after they're dead?" Lilly was asking with an attempt at a rhetorical question. "That's the craziest thing I ever heard in my life, especially given what you do."
"I thought it might fill a few centuries of eternity," Lilah said with a shrug, taking a long swig off Lilly's flask as she shifted gears and slid her convertible into the carpool lane. "You never get the magnitude of eternity until after you die."
Lilly smirked and stole her booze back. "That's so true," she said, pulling up her shirt and flashing the two boys in the next car over. Had she not been sporting the gruesome head wound, Lilah suspected they'd have been much more flattered. As it was, their horrified expressions were the most entertaining things Lilah had seen in a week. "So is it true that Hell is nicer than Orange County?"
"Hell has less traffic," Lilah said dryly as the 5/57 split promptly decided to spite her and Lilah was again reminded that Hell was a state of mind rather than a physical location. "So. Lilly Kane. Why do you keep running away and hassling your friends and family? Who was it this time? Veronica Mars, right? Former best friend, the girl who was maybe kind of sort of supposed to die instead of you?"
Blonde, smirky Lilly glared at Lilah. She'd demanded to know why Wolfram and Hart kept dragging her away from her family, refusing to believe that even Celeste Kane was capable of filing a form of restraining order against her daughter's ghost. Lilah was fairly appalled herself, but the restraining order was on record and Wolfram and Hart was being paid handsomely to keep Lilly away from the Kanes and anyone involved with the murder.
"At least I don't wear that fake Grace Kelly scarf to cover up my scars," she said finally. "And I'm not wearing an outfit that's so straight off The OC that it screams that your social life is spent alone in your apartment with cats."
"And the blood and mysterious message routine isn't even more pathetic?" Lilah retorted, irritated that her OC addiction was so obvious to everyone. Lindsey McDonald, queen of the little bitches had asked if she thought she was Summer or Marissa last week, when clearly, she was Julie Cooper. "Poor little Lilly Kane. Everyone's moving on, except for the friend whose life you ruined, and that's only because you wrecked her life."
"At least I'm not babysitting me," Lilly replied sullenly, glaring at the seventeen lanes of traffic moving approximately three miles an hour. "Can we go to Disneyland? I mean, after all, you're babysitting me anyway, so come on. Let's do it right."
Lilah turned her head and raised an eyebrow, pretending to be surprised. "You're serious," she said, a touch of a smile playing about the corners of her mouth. "You know that if we go, there will be lines and the Matterhorn will be broken?"
"We'll cut in line in front of cute boys and use Fastpass," Lilly countered, squaring her shoulders flirtatiously. "Come on, Lilah, you know you wanna. You can't resist the Lilly charm. Nobody can. Besides, your job will wait for a few hours. It's not like eternity's going anywhere, huh?"
Lilah jerked the convertible across three lanes of traffic, flipped off a guy in a Lexus SUV, and had them flipped onto 5 South's low-traffic carpool lane before Lilly could say, "hey, we could go to the Block over there, too..."
"Fuck," Lilly said, sounding bona fide impressed for the first time since Lilah had dragged the girl into the convertible. "That was some aggressive driving."
Lilah laughed, a funny little laugh that sounded like she hadn't done any laughing for a while as she turned up the radio super loud and tapped with the beat on her steering wheel.
"I have some rage," she said. "See, I have this job and I hate it, and I had to go pick up a runaway ghost-girl during daytime LA traffic, and my ex-boyfriend recently joined my division and is being a complete ass to me because he blames me for dying."
"Yeah, because that's useful," Lilly said. "I mean, shit. I could blame Veronica for being dead, because it was supposed to be her, but that would do about zero in the getting alive game."
"I told my ex-boyfriend exactly that," Lilah agreed. "And did I blame him for cutting my head off after I was dead? No. Because I have class."
Lilly gaped. "After you were dead? Wow, that's fucked the fuck up," she said, unconsciously bopping her head along to the music on the radio. "Why did he do that?"
"He thought I was maybe a vampire," Lilah said. "Wes was great, but he was a bit...crazy. Nobody ever thought to medicate him, and that was bad, bad thing."
Laughing, Lilly shook her head incredulously. "Nothing like the people you love being crazy, huh?" she asked, taking another hit off the flask and handing it to Lilah. "So what ride should we go on first? I want to go on all the mountains, but you're paying, so you decide where we go first."
"Haunted Mansion," said Lilah without pausing to think about it. "They've got the Christmas overlay on and I always dug on it."
"Sweet," Lilly agreed. "Hey, should we stop to refill the happiest accessory on earth before hitting the parks?"
"Oh, that goes without saying," Lilah said, smoothly getting off the freeway and downshifting gracefully. "There's no way I'm actually going into Disney's California Adventure without being tipsy, and I do want to try out the Tower of Terror."
"No doubt," Lilly agreed, looking out toward the freeway and the thousands of cars full of thousands of people, not getting just how lucky they were. It was hard to remember Disneyland when the real ride was so close but so impossible to get to ever again. "Do you ever wish you could just wake up and be alive again? Do you ever want to close your eyes and know that you're just sleeping?"
"Every minute," Lilah said, looking straight ahead and not blinking, even with the sun glaring in her eyes about to blind her. "Every day."