(sideblog) scooby gang

It’s been a few years since all hell broke loose in Los Angeles. Lilah nearly died probably would have if Wesley hadn’t saved her, but he managed to show up just in time. Once they’d both gotten out of the sewers and he got her patched up, Lilah thought that he’d leave for good,but he once again managed to surprise her in the course of a few hours. About an hour after he’d saved and patched her up Lorne came to the hotel to tell them that Angel had found out about Connor being trapped in Wolfram and Hart. Turns out that Connor was killed by the beast and Angel just lost it and was out for revenge, so Lorne had looked at them both and said it was a good idea to high tail it out of town. Wesley being Wes took his advice and it wasn’t long before they had  his car packed full with all of their belongings. Once they made it out of Los Angeles they just kept driving; until they finally managed to agree that they had to find some small town to stay in. So that’s how they ended up deciding on Ashford New York. It’s a nice sleepy small town in Upstate New York. Lilah wasn’t all that impressed with it at first,but it’s since grown on her. Life here is easier, slower than the life they had in LA. It’s nice they were here a month, both with steady jobs before Wes proposed and seven weeks later after driving him crazy with anticipation Lilah said yes. Three weeks after she’d said yes to his marriage proposal they were married in a nice quiet ceremony. About a year later they were blessed with the birth of their first and so far only child, a daughter. they named her Lilly Elizabeth Morgan Pryce.She’s four and a total daddy’s girl, she’s got him.. well both of them wrapped around her little finger.   Lilah’s still a defense attorney for a decent sized ‘normal’ law firm,but  she mostly works from the home office that she and Wes  share, so that she can watch Lilly when she’s not in preschool. Wes works at the local university here it’s about a twenty minute ride both ways, and he loves it or so he keeps insisting whenever Lilah asks if he misses the old days. Lilah was  currently trying to get some paperwork done in the home office, but it’s been slow going since Lilly has decided to bug her at every single commercial, with the same question. Since about eleven this morning she’s been wanting to know when daddy’s getting home and apparently Lilah’s answer of soon hasn’t been good enough, because she keeps asking. She keeps this up Lilah may have to call him just to get her to stop.

Lilly was a very adorable,and active four year old. She was the spiting image of Lilah;except for her eyes, they were blue like Wes’s. She was a fairly good mix of the two of them,but she tended to take after Lilah a little more,especially when she was upset.

After being told repeatedly for the past hour,that Daddy would be home soon, Lilly got tired of this answer. So when the next commercial came on, she walked into her parents office with her Barbie. She looked over at her mother,who was still trying to get work done. “Mommy, can you play Barbies?”

Lilah sighed and closed her eyes, as Lilly interrupted her for what felt like the millionth time this morning. “Lilly,we’ve been over this, I’m busy working so no I can’t play right now,”

Lilly apparently didn’t like  this answer, because she stomped her foot and pouted. “But Mommy I wanna play!”

Lilah looked up from the file she was reading,clearly annoyed. “Lilly I said not right now,maybe later.”

Lilah was about to tell her to go to her room,when next thing she knew, Barbie was flying across the room on her own,and she hit the wall just past Lilah’s head. The doll had hit the wall so hard,her head came off.

Lilah was stunned into silence from shock. It took a few moments,before the shock wore off,once it did Lilah picked up the phone and hit one on speed dial for Wes’s number. While she waited for him to pick up, she glanced from the now headless Barbie to their daughter.

Until something inside of him had snapped, and he had shaken free the chains that life, his father, that everyone around him had put on him, one by one, over the years.  Well.  He thought he had.  Truth be told, in hindsight it seemed much more like the heads of the hydra.  One fell away and three others locked him in place, weights for him to drag behind him.  Rules. Regulations.  Self imposed propriety.  Sacrifices.  For the better of everyone else.  The needs of the one.  Bit by bit, he lost himself.  Held his tongue.  Watched Fred slip away, little by little by little, and did nothing.   Watched as the others followed Angel, blindly, with utter faith, only to be betrayed by him, to be abandoned by him when they needed him most.  

And then, to find that Angel had wallowed in his own misery with ... his sire.  His old paramore, resulting in the child.  A miracle child, perhaps, in his own right, one that they had all loved.  One that he had loved.  But he had been tricked.  Betrayed.  He had once again tried to do the right thing and it had cost him.  Everything.  

He should have hated her for it.  The truth was, he had -- did, a little.  But it was tempered with something else, now, after all this time.  After she had nearly died, after he had seen the world nearly come to an end two, three, four times within the same week span.

Perspectives shifted.  He realized, now, that in her own way, she had always been stronger than him.  She knew who she was, better or worse, and she stood by that.  She had done what she had to do.  To survive.  To grow strong.  To care for the people she cared about.  Her methods were... more reckless, and yes, far more evil in intent than the lengths that he had willingly gone to.  But she was who she was.  And she accepted him, loved him, for who he was.  For better or worse.  

They had left so much behind.  Things had changed, drastically, for both of them.  He had never imagined himself a teacher, certainly not like this, when he might have taught at Princeton, Yale -- but he was done with the limelight, or so he kept telling himself.  He had a life, now.  A wife -- a child.  He had not ever imagined that he would be a father.  When Lilah had told him the news, he resisted the panic that rose.  What manner of father could he be, with the history, the precedent, the example that his own father had left for him?  Cruelty, abject hatred.  Hours, locked into closets, sore and bruised from the punishments of hands and cruel, acid laced tongues.  Whittled down into a shadow of a person, hollow and shaking in fear.  Never good enough.  Never perfect.  

Spike just scowled at the older vampire for a few seconds, calling him all sorts of uncouth language inside his brain. Maybe if he kept a civil tongue in his head, he could last one more day without another beating from Angelus. He still had bruises in places he didn’t know he could have bruises, at least not until he had been awakened to the lifestyle of a creature of the night. “It’s Spike,” was the only thing he muttered aloud. “And I don’t wax poetic, ‘specially not to the food.”

Darla purred contently as Angelus’s fingers played delicately through her hair. She surveyed the mess of blood in the kitchen and thought about which minion she liked least this week who would have the opportunity to clean it up. She made a mental note to check underneath the table and all chairs lest they go uncleaned. She smiled at Angelus’s taunting and then pulled away from him once Spike left the room.

Faith/Tara aesthetic!