Chapter Text
Los Angeles.
Wolfram & Hart offices, Special Projects division.
May 2015.
"Wolfram & Hart, this is Lilah Morgan."
One of the Senior Partners' little jokes isn't just that she still works here, but that she actually has to answer her own damn phone these days.
Not that many people have reason to call. Almost everyone who'd known her believes she died long ago, either back when she actually did (thanks, Jasmine), or a year later when the Los Angeles branch went tits-up with the whole Circle of the Black Thorn thing (thanks, Angel).
She tries not to think about the one man who might have cared. He'd tried to get her out of this contract at one point, not that it worked. She knows he died fighting Cyvus Vail, and she knows what happened after that. The Senior Partners let her see the whole damn thing.
Thinking about him never gets her anywhere. He's gone. Sure, Fred's gone, Illyria too, but that doesn't make her feel any better. Worse, maybe, if she's being honest about it. Not that she has much use for being honest.
Wolfram & Hart, meanwhile, always endures. New office building, new apocalypses, same city, same old story. Same Lilah, dead but not dead, still bound to this fucking law firm, still answering her own fucking phone in the year of someone else's Lord, 2015.
"Hello, Lilah. Been a while. How's LA?"
"Zoe." Her cousin in New York. Zoe's father - Lilah's uncle - had been some kind of big city official. Zoe calls herself a "fixer," claims to deal with real power, not politics or money, and, Lilah suspects, looks down on her and her "normal" lawyer job.
They don't talk much.
"Bad time?"
"It's later in New York. You tell me."
"City never sleeps." Zoe pauses. "I need a favor."
Now Lilah's interested. "I'm listening."
"You know, I looked into the New York branch of Wolfram & Hart a long time ago. I don't know how connected the branches are, but I did some digging, I wanted to find out what it is you really do."
"Uh-huh."
"I didn't like what I found."
"Wolfram & Hart's clients can be... colorful. So can yours, from what I hear. But if you think you have something on me, well... attorney-client privilege, and all that."
"Don't bullshit me, Lilah, neither of us have time for that," Zoe says, which is funny, considering both of their jobs. "What's your job title? Head of Special Projects? I know exactly what those 'Special Projects' are. They're apocalypses."
Lilah doesn't know how much Zoe actually knows, and feels no particular familial fondness that would warrant giving anything away. "Is that so," she says evenly.
"Whatever's happening right now. With the power grid. Is that you? Are you involved?"
Truth is, she's not. A technological apocalypse is really not part of the Senior Partners' agenda, and is, in fact, something the Special Projects division is actively working against. It's the only reason she's safe to even take her own calls right now. Enchanted phone lines, off the radar of whatever the hell "Samaritan" is.
Not that she's going to tell Zoe any of that.
"If I say no, will you believe me?"
Lilah hears Zoe sigh. "I don't know. I do know that something really bad is coming, and I want to believe you're not involved."
"I'm not," Lilah says, honestly. Lilah knows exactly when it's important to be honest - for real, actually honest - and how to really sell it. It works better in person, though. She adds, "Wolfram & Hart has no designs on the United States power grid. Honestly, the whole thing is fucking up our networks too."
"I'm going to take that on faith, and you are not going to like it if I find out that you're lying to me right now."
"I'm sure," Lilah says. "So. You wanted a favor."
"I want you to help my friend John," Zoe says, and Lilah catches the way she says 'friend' but does not comment. "He's... got something of a death wish, and I think whatever's coming... I think this might really be it."
Lilah actually laughs. "You think your boyfriend might die in an upcoming apocalypse and you think I can do what, exactly, about that?"
"I think you died in 2003 and are currently having a conversation with me."
Oh.
"And I don't think you just faked your death. I've seen plenty of people try that. John usually tracks them down, actually. I've looked into it, and I think you died but you're talking to me right now because you know something the rest of us don't."
Interesting.
---
Somewhere.
Later.
The man in the suit opens his eyes, finds himself seated across a small table from a well-dressed woman who must be an attorney.
Great. An interrogation room.
"Where am I? What happened?"
"I'm sure you have many questions, Mr. Reese, and I assure you they'll be answered in good time." She smiles, adjusts the scarf around her neck.
"Last thing I remember I was..." Reese looks down, checks himself for blood. He's clean. Surprisingly clean. And no holes in his clothes. He's pretty sure he remembers being shot.
"You won," the woman assures him. "You stopped the big bad AI apocalypse. Everything worked out just fine. For... most of you, anyway. Congratulations."
"Who are you? What happened?"
"Definitely not the first time you've been shot," the woman says, casually. "And not even the first time you've been shot and then a missile hit the building you were in." She casually taps the manila folder between them on the table. "That's... oddly specific. You're a very interesting man."
"Who are you," he demands. He doesn't raise his voice, just asks very intensely. He moves his hands to check his belt. Whatever happened, however he got here, he's not cuffed but he doesn't have a gun. She might. He watches her closely, and suddenly realizes she's not breathing. Hasn't breathed at all, as far as he can tell.
What the hell?
"Damn it, I always forget about breathing," she says. "To be fair, though, you're not breathing either."
Reese realizes she's right. "I get it. Simulation. This is some Samaritan thing."
"Look, given... recent events... I don't know what I can possibly do to assure you this is not a simulation, but I will explain everything." She adjusts her scarf ever so slightly, lets Reese see the scar that no one could possibly survive, let alone be sitting here and talking through. And not breathing through. "I've been dead - for real - since... oh, 2003. Long before this Samaritan nonsense. And hey, now you're dead too. Also for real this time. Some explosions are just too, well... explosive."
"That's impossible."
"Please, John - can I call you John? - after all the things you've been through, 'impossible' sounds a little, well, silly, doesn't it?"
"Fine. So, what, this is... hell?"
The woman raises an eyebrow. "Is that where you think you're going?" She laughs. "We should both be so lucky." She hands him a card.
LILAH MORGAN, ESQ.
HEAD OF SPECIAL PROJECTS.
WOLFRAM & HART.
"Welcome to the afterlife. I'm your lawyer."