SquidgeWorld Archive

Her diamonds sparkled. Lilah didn't take them out much anymore; they reminded her of the swanky parties she'd had to attend for her clients, the affairs that Holland made her go to. They were her past.

That's why she usually kept them in a jewelry box, away from the one where she kept her everyday jewelry. She didn't like looking at them much.

There was the 14-karat gold tennis bracelet that had 10-karat diamonds in it that she received as a gift when she became junior partner. Idly, she wondered if she should track Lindsey down and send it to him; had he not gone wild in the boardroom, she never would have gotten it. And...well, she didn't want it anymore. He could have it, and she'd be just fine with that.

There was the pink diamond ring, bigger than the one J-Lo had gotten from Ben Affleck. Or was it the one Kobe Bryant gave to his wife after he got caught with another woman? Pink diamonds almost always meant bad news, in her opinion, even if they *were* pretty. Hers was no different; it was one of the few diamonds that weren't attached to the firm, but it had been her mother's. This one, she'd keep, bad news be damned.

Wesley had insisted they do spring cleaning to their apartment in London. Their apartment. It had a nice ring to it, Lilah decided. Things had changed in the last three years, since Wesley shot Cordelia in the heart before she killed Lilah. She hated thinking about it, but it creeped into her thoughts every once in a while.

Of course, when they all found out Cordelia was the one behind everything, it left a sour taste for The Powers That Be in everyone's mouth. She had insisted upon the fact that The Powers were their allies; Lilah had known differently. Lilah had known that The Powers That Be were just like she had been: they'd play for the winning team, whether they were good, bad, or just didn't care.

But she did. Lilah started to care the night Wesley saved her. Whatever their relationship had been before had changed in that instant. He'd held on to her like he'd been terrified he was going to lose her, and instead of a cool demeanor that pushed him away she just sobbed in his arms.

Lilah shook her head, clearing her thoughts. That's what spring cleaning was about. Out with the old, in with the new, just like New Years.

"Lilah?"

She turned around and looked in the doorway. Wesley stood there with the cordless phone. "Yes?"

"There's...Angel needs us."

"Why?"

"You remember Sunnydale?"

"That's where Buffy was, right?"

"Yes. It seems that someone wants to rebuild and reopen the Hellmouth."

"I thought it was closed."

"So did I."

***

It didn't take that long to put a stop to what was happening in Sunnydale. They were home before they knew it.

Sunnydale. Lilah remembered when Wesley got the call. Buffy was fighting The First, an ancient demon that couldn't actually take a form of it's own; it appeared as dead people to whoever it wanted to torture. But it also raised vampires, vampires unlike Angel.

Wolfram & Hart made overtures for Angel to join the firm, but he said now. But since they had an interest in protecting Sunnydale, and they knew Angel had an interest in protecting Buffy, they gave him an amulet. He gave it to Buffy. She gave it to Spike.

Spike ended up a ball of fire with the entire town of Sunnydale on top of him, but The First and it's vampires were destroyed, and all the Potentials in the entire world became activated Slayers.

And now, it became strange. After everything that had happened, the Angel Investigations team drifted apart. Gunn and Fred broke up, and Fred stayed in Los Angeles to help Angel, Connor and Lorne while Gunn went...somewhere. They'd lost track of him.

Lorne went back to Vegas and did much better with his act the second time around; he still helped Angel out when time permitted or if there was a great need.

Connor took off one day and returned, six months later, a different person. A more normal person. And he'd met one of the Potentials and brought her to Los Angeles. Her name was Rona, and she'd survived the fight in Sunnydale and had lingered in San Francisco before coming south to Los Angeles to look for other Potentials-turned-Slayers that could be trained. She and Connor had hit it off almost instantly and she'd helped shape the person he was now.

Fred and Angel...the strange thing was, they were never anything more than friends. Angel was still hurting over Cordelia's death and Fred was smarting over her and Gunn's breakup. Lilah had guessed they would have gotten together at some point, but it never happened. You couldn't find anyone closer to Angel, though. Fred was loyal and smart and frighteningly optimistic, qualities any friend of Angel's should have. Except maybe all that optimism.

And then there was Wesley and herself. Angel had negotiated for Lilah's contract to be destroyed if he accepted the amulet. She was free. She hadn't had that kind of freedom in so long that at first she didn't know what to do with it, but Wesley had an idea.

Giles was now the head of the Watcher's Council. He wanted Wesley as his second in command, and that meant going to London. Wesley really wanted it.

Lilah wasn't about to stop him, so long as she could go with him.

There were some rough moments, to be sure. They were just getting used to actually living with each other when they moved across the US and the Atlantic, and it was hard for Lilah to adjust at first. And Wesley's father didn't approve of their relationship, since he knew just who Lilah was. Lilah had always been surprised just how much that disapproval hurt not just Wesley but herself as well.

Yeah, she really had changed.

***

"Back to spring cleaning?"

Lilah turned and smiled at Wesley. "Sort of. I have all this jewelry....I want to get rid of most of it. Trying to figure out what to do with it."

Wesley shook his head. "How much is all that worth?"

"Um...you don't want to know. It's obscene."

Wesley nodded and moved towards Lilah. He saw her mother's pink diamond. "Are you keeping this?"

"Yes."

"You should wear it. Right...here," he said, pointing to her left ring finger.

"Why? We're not engaged," Lilah said, arching an eyebrow.

Wesley nodded. "You're quite right." And then he bent down on one knee and produced a small velvet box. "Perhaps, Lilah, if I were to ask you to marry me..."

Lilah put a hand to her mouth. "Wesley...I..."

"Please, Lilah, will you marry me? And wear this ring on that finger?" He opened the lid of the box to show a diamond ring surmounted by emeralds. The ring was half the size of her mother's diamond, but that didn't matter to Lilah.

Wesley was on bended knee. He wanted to *marry* her. He really did love her.

"Yes."

He took the ring out of it's case and slipped it on her finger. It was a perfect fit. "You have made me a very happy man, Lilah."

"Well, you've made me a very happy woman."

Wesley stood and reached for her, and she came into his arms willingly. This is what she wanted, his arms around her and the knowledge that they would be together. But something put a slight damper on this joyous occasion in her mind.

"Wesley? What about your father?"

Wesley sighed slightly and rested his forehead against hers. "He knows, that I was going to propose, at least. He was against it. I told him to accept it or to stay out of my affairs permanently."

"Oh, Wesley," Lilah said, moving her head so she could hold him tightly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. We don't need him."

"We may not, but you do."

***

Spring cleaning was supposed to be put off again. Since she'd started in the beginning of spring, it wouldn't be hard to pick up her special spring cleaning soon, she thought; they wanted to get married quickly, and Watcher's Council business would demand for a short honeymoon, unless they wished to track down Slayers in the Bahamas.

But two nights before her wedding, while Wesley entertained Giles, Angel, Connor and the other men at a hotel room nearby, Lilah and the women stayed in the apartment. Buffy, Dawn, Fred, Willow, Kennedy, Faith and Rona were in her room, and the subject of spring came up.

"You're getting married on the last day of spring," Willow said, taking a sandwich from the plate that had been passed around. "Only it doesn't seem like spring around here."

Lilah shrugged and smiled slightly. She enjoyed having the other women around, the ones other than Fred. She knew them well by now, but she saw them very rarely. She wanted to concentrate on them being here instead of dwelling on spring ending, and with it her chance at finishing the spring cleaning.

And then an idea hit her.

"I think I would like to give you each a present, for...well, for being here. I never had many friends, and to have you all at my side when I get married makes me feel better."

"Safer, too, I'd think," Dawn said, and the women broke out into a fit of laughter.

Lilah shook her head, laughing. "Come with me."

***

The "oohs" and "aahs" didn't surprise Lilah much. "That's got to be worth a fortune," Rona said.

"Yeah," Buffy said. "Um..."

"Yes?" Lilah asked.

"The gifts you want to give us? Are they...?"

"The diamonds? Yes. You get to pick out something and keep it. I've already taken out what I want to keep."

"What did you keep?" Fred asked curiously.

She opened up a small drawstring bag nestles among the diamonds. Inside was her mother's ring, a pair of emerald and diamond chandelier earrings and a three inch wide diamond bracelet. She pointed to a larger bag as she put the items back in. "That's a tiara I received from my mother too, as well as a pouch of rough diamonds."

"Too?" Faith asked.

"The ring was my mother's, too. The earrings were a gift from my grandfather, the bracelet was the first piece of jewelry I bought after I finished law school and the rough diamonds were my share of a peace offering I'd helped broker."

Faith let out a whistle. "Man, you're rich."

Lilah laughed. "And you guys will have a little bit of it now. Go on. Pick something out. Just remember you're wearing it during the wedding."

"So nothing gaudy?" Dawn asked, eyeing a choker that sat on top of the pile of diamond jewelry sitting in the velvet lined box.

"Like I said, remember you're wearing it during the wedding. But choose whatever you want."

***

When it was all said and done, Lilah only had a few pieces left, including the tennis bracelet. "I think I will send that to Lindsey," she murmured to herself.

Buffy had found a small heart shaped diamond that fit the middle finger of her right hand. She was the only one who's fingers were small enough to wear it. It was set in white gold that provided an interesting contrast to Buffy's tan skin. She stared at it for a moment and smiled. Lilah wanted to tell her that it was a gift from the first man she loved, but then, knowing Buffy, the Slayer may try to give it back, so she kept quiet. It looked better on Buffy than it ever had on Lilah, besides.

Dawn went for the choker. It seemed to look like lacework, but it was only two inches wide and it fit around her neck perfectly. She got up and pulled her bridesmaid dress out of the closet and held it up. She didn't look so young anymore. It surprised Lilah that she forgot, for a moment, that Dawn was only nineteen or twenty and not older. Lilah was about that old when a rich ex-boyfriend gave her that choker for a formal dinner at his parent's house. The relationship didn't last, but the jewelry he gave her did.

Faith went for a simple pair of diamond studs. As she told the group, "Robin may be putting a diamond on my finger one of these days, so I don't want my hands cluttered. And I'm not big on earrings, but these are nice." They all laughed, but it was true. No one had really ever seen Faith in jewelry. Make-up, they saw a lot of, but jewelry wasn't a big thing for the Slayer.

Willow and Kennedy also took a pair of earrings. Kennedy's were garnet and diamond, and were just a simple line of alternating stones going downward while Willow's earrings were a dangling Celtic knot with diamonds at each connection of the knot. Both pairs of earrings were bought with her first paycheck once she became junior partner. They never looked good on her, but on the two lovers, they looked spectacular.

Rona hesitated before deciding on a Y-necklace with a pear shaped diamond at the end. It was simple and classy, and the diamond rested on Rona's chest perfectly. Lilah remembered she wore that to work one day just to piss Lindsey off, to show him she was better off than he was.

Fred, however, chose the barrettes. Lilah had forgotten about those four barrettes. She wore them to her first party at the firm, unsure at the time of how formal it was supposed to be. She'd gotten one of her few compliments from Holland about them.

But no one else needed to know that.

***

"And do you, Lilah Morgan, take Wesley Wyndham-Pryce to be your lawfully wedded husband, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?"

"I do."

"Then by the power vested in me, I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."

And, they kissed. The wedding party cheered. And Wesley and Lilah Wyndham-Pryce left the small church to head towards the reception that awaited the small wedding party.

***

It wasn't until they returned home from their week-long honeymoon that Wesley remembered something.

"Were all the diamonds the girls wearing yours?"

Lilah nodded. "They're theirs, now. Part of my spring cleaning."

"And the rest?"

"Well, I sent them to other people who I thought may want them the morning of the wedding, for the most part. There's a few pieces I'm going to sell as soon as I can get them appraised and one or two I'm donating to a jewelry museum here in London."

Wesley wrapped his arms around his new wife. "How much are you keeping?"

"A tiara, a ring, a pair of earrings and the loose diamonds." She shrugged. "But that's not important."

"Oh? Why?"

"Because the diamond I'm wearing on my left hand means more to me that the other diamonds." She kissed her new husband lightly. "Though they are important, too."

Wesley laughed and picked her up, carrying her into the bedroom and shutting the door behind him.

***
NEXT SPRING
***

Lilah Wyndham-Pryce placed the tiara on her pregnant belly. "I'm glad you're a girl. I think you would look pretty strange if you were a boy and you wore this," she said to her unborn child.

"One day," she continued, "you'll get the jewelry. Unless you have sisters and then we'll split it up. But you're my first, and you'll get the wedding ring. You'll like it, I hope. It's one of the few things I was given that I really liked that I didn't plan on at all."

She took the tiara off her belly and placed it back in the velvet bag and in the drawer before standing up. She carried it to the safe of the new house and opened the door.

"I can't wait for you to get here," she said quietly. "I think, now, I'll be a good mom. And Wesley, he'll be a good dad. And maybe your grandmother and grandfather will be there. Maybe not. But it doesn't matter; your daddy will, and that's more important."

She placed the bag in the safe and shut the door, humming to herself. She hadn't planned on this, but the pregnancy was the second best thing to happen to her after Wesley. Sure, when her hormones went wild, there were times she was sure Wesley probably wished things were different, but he loved her all the same, and couldn't wait to be a father.

She idly wondered what may have happened if Cordelia had killed her that evening. She'd probably be one of the ghosts floating around the firm, if the firm was still there. After all, Angelus and Cordelia had tried to destroy the world. But Lilah had faith that they all would have survived somehow.

And as she continued to wonder, she bet that Wesley would have ended up with Fred eventually. Maybe they all would have taken the firm's offer, maybe not. Maybe Angel would have risked his life to close the Hellmouth in Sunnydale and the group would have scattered to the winds sooner than they actually had. Then again, maybe not.

It didn't matter, though. She had a new life now, and a new outlook to go with it. No more dwelling on the past, no more wondering "what if" or anything of that nature. No, Lilah had other things to think about, things in the present and future.

Maybe it was time to do some more spring cleaning, get ready for the baby's arrival. Time to clear out the clutter and the rotten memories and the things attached to them. Time for a new start. Yes, Lilah decided, new would be good.