a_sloane | Meeting Lilah Morgan (open to freelilah)

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Meeting Lilah Morgan (open to freelilah)

There were worse ways to pass one's time than to open up business negotations with a woman of mystery. Sloane had dealings with Wolfram and Hart before, mostly concerned with the Credit Dauphine cover for SD-6, but he himself, as a private person, had never been a client. Huge and ruthless organisations he could not control were not exactly trustworthy.

On the other hand, any lawyer serving for Wolfram and Hart would know their business, or would be dead. Lilah Morgan appeared to be very much alive, and rather intriguingly not listed as a lawyer acting in any current case, something which he had checked out, using the APO access to the relevant databases without hesitation. She had been head of the Los Angeles special projects department, as she had mentioned, but no activity was listed since. All of which opened up a can of interesting possibilities.

Arvin Sloane had no intention of telling a stranger just what he had in mind, but he decided some preliminary dealings, perhaps involving some of his less traceable bank accounts from his time with OmniFam, would be a good way to find out whether Lilah Morgan was the right person for what he privately termed "the project".

His pardon agreement banned him from any Rambaldi research, unless, he thought cynically, said research would be to the government's advantage. Well, there were other ways. Nadia's current state was due to a Rambaldi formula Elena had injected her with. It stood to reason that somewhere, in some manuscript by the Master which Sloane had somehow not managed to get hold on so far, there might be a clue for a cure. Of course, he had tapped all resources known to him by now. Except one. Wolfram and Hart was rumoured to have the greatest collection of manuscripts and artifacts known to man. And he needed something - or someone - to open that collection to him.

If Lilah Morgan turned out to be the wrong person, well. Then he would still have spent some hopefully agreeable hours dining at Orris with what a vague memory told him was an attractive brunette, and what her comments so far had shown to be an intelligent woman.

There were, indeed, worse ways to spend one's time.

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Lilah's name was not listed with any current projects at Wolfram & Hart for the very simple reason that, as of the first of the year, she was officially no longer in the firm's employ. They had taken pains to explain that she wasn't fired but simply laid off or, as the British would say, redundant. (Why Lilah spent any time wondering what the British would say is a question best left for another time). A perpetuity clause was, as the Formerly-Human Resources officer unnecessarily explained, a tricky thing at the best of times. The clause was activated at the employee's death, at the employer's option, and the employee continued to serve the firm until such time as he or she was no longer needed. Due to -- she actually used these words -- a series of unfortunate events leading the Los Angeles office, particularly, to exceed its perpetuity quota for the decade, a certain number of employees would have to be let go and as Ms. Morgan was one of the last to decease, seniority-- etc., etc. So, they were basically telling her, she was being penalized for not being bitten by a zombie. She suspected it was all bullshit, and that she'd been doomed with the firm from the moment Wesley tried to burn her contract. As though she had wanted him to. As though that would have worked anyway, as though he had even thought it would work -- she rather suspected the man of preferring his grand gestures to be futile. They were safer that way.

Whatever the reason, Lilah was no longer in the good graces -- not to mention on the payroll -- of the firm. Lately, management had been claiming that they had the right to terminate, at wiil, the existence as well as the employment. But she wasn't particularly worried about that eventuality. The whole debacle was tied up in legal red tape that made Jarndyce v. Jarndyce look like The People's Court. By the time it was ever decided, assuming an apocalypse or seven hadn't intervened, Lilah intended to acquire an insurance policy by way of hard work and good old-fashioned extortion.

Meanwhile, a girl had to keep up appearances, not to mention staying busy. She didn't know much about Arvin Sloane, but that itself made him an interesting study. She hadn't been able to find out much about Sloane, and usually she could manage to dig up the goods on anyone she wanted, anytime. Sloane must have been engaged in some pretty unusual extracurricular activities for her to turn up such a blank slate.

At the very least, he should be an interesting study up close. And if she was lucky, he might offer to pick up the tab.

She entered the restaurant exactly one minute before the agreed time, and looked around for Sloane.

Noting that Lilah Morgan was punctual, but not so much it would appear she was overly eager for a job, Sloane took in her appearance. Attractive, by all means, and utterly self-possessed. Definitely a player. Which meant he was on his guard. Anyone with a passing familiarity to various members of the Derevko clan knew that beautiful smart brunettes were underestimated at one's peril.

On the other hand, it also meant that whatever else would happen, he wouldn't get bored, and he did love a challenge. When he caught Lilah's eye, he smiled and nodded, and rose once she approached the table to greet her.

"Now why I ever wasted my time during that charity talking to Linwood instead of you is a mystery to me,"

he says. "Welcome, Ms. Morgan."

Lilah's main impressions of Sloane at the charity event had been not too tall and probably very rich or very powerful from the way Linwood's chatting him up. Which, at that particular event, had not made him stand out -- and there had been other things on Lilah's mind, such as keeping a moody vampire from crashing the party and ruining all her hard work.

Now, though, as Sloane stands and welcomes her, she remembers something else, a quality that warned her to back away and invited her to come closer, at the same time. It was in his smile, a look edged with a trace of secret amusement. It was as though he knew something that no one else in the room did. It's not far from the way she imagines she might have looked the moment before taking Linwood's head off.

Now Sloane actually mentions the man, who Lilah hasn't thought of in ages, and Lilah puts on a secret smile of her own. "Linwood wasn't so bad. I mean he did tend to go on and on, and sometimes it was enough to make you want to cut his throat. Figuratively speaking." Here she resists raising a hand to the red scarf tied at her own neck. Instead, she lowers her voice and says, with a look of grave concern, "One shouldn't speak ill of the dead." Especially not the ones you killed. It seems a bit like gloating. Though who is Lilah kidding. She likes gloating.

Sloane wasn't familiar with the exact manner of Linwood's demise, but he was more than familiar with getting rid of fools in the way of one's ambition, especially if they threatened one's own life, too. He usually preferred to use other people in order to achieve this - one one fondly remembered occasion the CIA, as the Alliance had really served its purpose and had dared to demand he should kill his wife - but sometimes one had to act oneself. It wouldn't suprise him if Lilah Morgan had; she struck him as the thorough kind of woman who would.

"Shouldn't one?"

he asks back, one eyebrow raised, while the waiter pulls her chair for her and Lilah gracefully sits down.

"De mortuis nihil nisi bene always struck me as a rather maudlin motto, though I'd agree that the pleasure of speaking ill of the dead is nothing to the pleasure of speaking ill of the living."

Sitting down himself, he takes the wine card the waiter offers.

"Of course the second is a bit riskier, but what is life without risks? And speaking of risks... I hear the 2004 Kiedricher Grafenberg Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese is one of the better Cépages nobles they offer here. Of course, it might be a bit too salty, but sometimes one has to take chances, doesn't one?"

"I always took it as a matter of self-preservation,"

Lilah speaks in a solemn tone to signal that she is not being the least bit serious.

"The dead have better means of eavesdropping," she explains, "and if they find out what you said, they can haunt you. And they're much harder to get rid of than a living nuisance."

She smiles.

"Exorcisms are a bitch."

She looks politely at the wine list, and agrees with Sloane's suggestion. In her current state, her senses are almost nonexistent, taste and smell particularly. They could literally be drinking horse piss, and she probably wouldn't even notice. Still. Appearances.

"So is Los Angeles your home base these days, Mr. Sloane? I had heard something about Zurich --" With a nostalgic smile, she says, "California is nice, of course, but I do sometimes feel a tug for the days of my own Grand Tour."

There is actually some truth to this statement -- she did enjoy the months she spent in Europe as a young woman. She also remembers that the condition of "nostalgia" was once identified as a disease.

She sounds quite serious, and for a moment, he allows himself to believe and hope she is. He'd pay almost any price to make one particular dead woman return to him. Though with the irony his life is prone to feature, he probably wouldn't be haunted by Emily, as they once had faked he was for the Alliance' benefit, but by one of his more obnoxious victims, like the late unlamented Robert Lindsey.

The dead are dead and remain dead, he almost says, but catches himself in time. You do not reveal a weakness to an intelligent enemy or ally, if you can avoid it. So he orders the wine and then responds to her other statements.

"Zurich is lovely, and yes, I spent almost two years there, before some professional and personal obligations brought me back. Still. Sometimes I wonder whether all those years in Europe haven't made me something of an exile here."

Which is actually true, though he thinks of the times in Italy rather than in Zurich. The first time he had visited the country, he had been an adolescent. Later, again, on his honeymoon. In the year after "Laura" died and Jack got jailed, Arvin and Emily had lived in Italy once more, and it was there Emily had lost the child only they knew about, and Sloane had found Rambaldi instead. Italy was where Emily had chosen him and died, and where Nadia had saved him and left. Italy had seen him more happy and more unhappy than any other country.

"Do I detect a fellow traveller? How deligthful," he says lightly, voice not betraying any of these thoughts. It's as good a subject as any. He wants her to move some sums to and from his European accounts, after all, as a first test of her reliability.

"What was your favourite destination?"

"Oh yes," Lilah smiles. "The travelers' disease. First diagnosed by Shakespeare, I believe. Specifically Rosalind."

Amateur theatrics had been a hobby since high school -- everyone said acting improved your debate skills -- and the women's college, had a particular fondness for the cross-dressing comedies.

"'Traveller:, look you lisp and wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own country, be out of love with your nativity and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are, or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola.'"

She smiles, to let him know they are both in the same gondola. "I spent almost a year in Italy, when I was studying art. I wrote an honors thesis on Caravaggio to prove it. It's a very poor thesis," she adds, "as I was a bit caught up in all wine, women, and song or -- the appropriate equivalents."

The equivalents here in this case shopping, fucking (women and men), and -- this being the '80s, if only the tail end -- copious amounts of very good cocaine. As for the thesis, her statement was, as Sloane might suspect, a statement of false modesty, but only of a sort. She thought it was probably a pretty good thesis, but, only becaue she had a allowed a smitten English art historian to write it for her, while she got high with a houseboy.

"Lovely country," she smiles, and means it. The nostalgia disease again. I must be getting sentimental in my death. She idly wonders if she should relocate to Rome; she imagines the differently alive community in that city must be thriving indeed. Though she has also heard a rumor of its being infested by vampire slayers and their paramours.

"Italia," Sloane returns fondly, answering her Shakespeare with a Byron quote, "and its fatal gift of beauty. I love the language, that soft bastard Latin/ Which melts like kisss from a female mouth/And sounds as if it should be writ on satin/ With syllables which breathe of the sweet south/ And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in/ That not a single accent seems uncouth/ Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural/ Which we're obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all."

"But," he adds, tone subtle changing, "I have not the slightest doubt that your thesis is excellent. You don't strike me as a woman who'd allow anything poor to cling to her name. Which, of couse, my dear Ms. Morgan, is why we're here."

The waiter approaches once more and asks him whether they're ready to order, and this time Sloane doesn't ask Lilah for her opinion; he orders ravioli filled with shrimp mousse and shitake mushroom sauce for her. Which, if Orris has kept up its standard, should be delicious, but it's also a very minor power play.

"Idleness is all very pleasant once in a while, but after a year or two, it must be dreadfully boring," Sloane continues. "For an intelligent woman such as yourself."

Which is his way of telling her he's aware that whatever her connection to Wolfram and Hart is right now, it can't be something comparable to her previous position.

Lilah smiles at Sloane's quotation, and also at the hint in his comment about her thesis. He's very good at picking up on the things a person doesnt' quite say, the suggestions she doesn't quite make. He also will have the good grace, she suspects, not to try to engage her in a conversation about chiarascuro or some such nonsense that bored her a decade ago.

She betrays no resentment as he orders for both of them. Maybe he's trying to needle her, but if so, it doesn't work -- she never understood the women who could work up a high dudgeon over the benign chauvinism of an older generation. Besides, now that she's let him order, she'll be perfectly within her right to expect him to pay. And she won't be able to taste the food, anyway, so she doesn't care very much.

His next comment is a more pointed barb -- so he knows or suspects she's not working for the firm. But she was prepared for this possibility and takes it in stride,

"So now we come to business." She raises her glass, and an eyebrow. "If, indeed, you are referring to business. I can think of other means, after all, for filling idle days."

Lilah meets his eyes. Dealing with Sloane will be easier if she can determine whether he wants to fuck her and, if so, whether it's an idle fantasy or a concrete goal. She remembers Linwood's territorial bitching, before the fundraiser, that Sloane was a happily married man and Lilah shouldn't be getting any ideas. But that was years ago and, as Sloane lifts his own glass, she performs the obligatory wedding-ring check. Only one factor, of course; not a determinative one.

Sloane is still wearing his ring, and, in widower's fashion, Emily's, which he has done since her death, but that is immaterial to what Lilah is suggesting. It has been a while - Judy Barnett, to be precise, which didn't exactly set the best precedence for mixing business with pleasure - and Lilah Morgan is both very attractive and definitely not the type of woman he falls in love with, which is something in her favour. He has never managed to fall out of love with anyone, and as he has no intention to offer Lilah Morgan that kind of power over him, he would withdraw at the first suspicion she could be more than a useful and clever aquaintance.

"Undoubtedly you can,"

Sloane replies, returning her toast.

"You strike me as a creative woman as well."

Which is neither a yes or a no to her unspoken question. They might end up in bed at some point if she wants, because she is rather attractive and he's middle-aged, not dead, but it is neither the reason nor a condition for hiring her as his lawyer.

"Creativity, of course, should be properly appreciated. I'm afraid the US goverment would be rather unappreciative of some reminders of my time in Europe. They might even call them unpatriotic. But I do want them taken care of. I'm sentimental that way. Do you think you can do that, Ms Morgan?"

There is always the chance that she's a plant. Arvin Sloane has sent pretty young women to fool ego-ridden powerful men with secrets often enough to be aware of that possibility. If she is, the first things he'll tell her, some of his secret accounts, won't give her much rope to try and hang him with. If she isn't, and doesn't have the patience to wait for more, she's also not the right person. If she has the patience and deals with the accounts in an imaginative and clever way, he'll go one step further and have that conversation about the Wolfram and Hart Rambaldi artifacts and manuscripts with her.

Lilah's curiosity about Sloane's marital status reflects no warm-fuzzy sentiments regarding the sanctity of the institution. Married men are, based on her own observations, easier to seduce, less emotionally demanding or generally tiresome, and far far simpler to blackmail.

A widower presented complications that she hasn't encountered before. Although she had occasionally drawn this comparison regarding Wesley's feelings toward his former employer (much to to the man's annoyance, which was, of course, the point).

In any case, Sloane's response suggests he finds her attractive (a good thing for both their sakes that she isn't aware of the "rather" qualifier) but that his immediate intentions relate to business. This is more than satisfactory for Lilah. She generally prefers the company of older men to her own peers, and Sloane is charming on top of his obvious power. But, despite prevailing opinion that would cast her as the office whore -- Lilah doesn't like to mix work up with sex when she can possibly avoid it.

The hinted possibility of sex is, of course, a potent weapon. Particularly as her job so often dealt in one-on-one recruitment of assets for the firm. But for the most part, it was an act. She talked the talk but kept fulfilment just out of reach. There had been two exceptions -- one too obvious to mention, too headache-inducing to analyze, and still ongoing. The other wasn't Angel -- OK, there had been that one time, but he started it and she just wanted to see what his game was and then the bastard bit her, and anyway, she's reasonably sure that somehow or another it wasn't really him. It wasn't that Slayer either; there were too many lawyers involved in that one for Lilah to work her one-on-one magic and, anyway, to be quite honest, Faith scared the shit out of her. No, it was that stupid redheaded daddy-issues bitch from Ohio who could swing from helpless to homicidal in ten seconds flat. She had run off to Angel, of course. Not that Lilah's bitter.

Most of the time, of course, her involvement with clients is entirely professional. And Arvin Sloane, whatever faults he may have, seems entirely unlikely to discard her in favor of Mr. Broody Manpire.

So she listens to Sloane's proposal, and nods. Even without an official place at the firm, she has enough connections and favors to call in that whatever he is asking for should be a breeze.

"I'm interested," she says, "Go on." And she can't resist adding, "Some of us have met enough patriots to last a lifetime."

"Someone else's lifetime, I hope," he says crisply, and hands her a paper with a new numbers and names. All written by your standard computer and printed out by your standard printer. "Yours should excel in length."

The waiter arrives with some hors d'oeuvres; after he leaves again, Sloane continues:

"There are several European accounts here I want to be closed, with their contents transferred to new accounts, in a way that even in the event of my execution would not allow the government to touch them, yet keeps them within the United States. Now I realize that it might be a somewhat mundane task for a woman of your abilities, but still, mundane things make excellent building stones, wouldn't you agree?"

He leans back.

"Besides. There is one account here I do wish to be traced to someone."

With the exception of the very few people he cares about, who are allowed to do anything to him, Sloane is not a forgiving person. He would have killed Howard Dean in any event, though at a time of his own choosing if events had not played out otherwise. This left him with another sadly anonymous enemy whose identity he had yet to discover, and Dean's assistant, the elusive Peyton. Who as it turns out has some relations in Texas, named Burkle; according to her file, she visited her aunt, uncle and cousin quite often. Not that Sloane has anything against the Burkles, but then, Peyton presumably doesn't have anything against Nadia, either.

"As you say, patriots can be obnoxious. Especially Texans."

Texans important from the East Coast, but his being less than impressed by the current administration was neither here nor there.

"Though it's quite possible in these times, wouldn't you agree, that all that artless Texan patriotism hides who knows what business connnections to foreign sources."

Asking Lilah Morgan to frame the Burkles could of course backfire, if she was a plant, but their actual connection to Peyton gave him enough leaveway to justify this. Jack wasn't naive. He would see this as a possible weapon to lure a crucial Prophet Five operative out of the woodworks and actually greenlight it.

If Lilah wasn't a plant, well, then it could be more.

Making the European accounts untraceable should be a snap. Ilona in the Rome office still owes Lilah a favor or three.

Involving Burkles from Texas could be trickier. Of course, these may turn out to have nothing to do with the Burkle she is familiar with -- she'll have to check that out first -- but if they do, there could be a conflict. It's not as though Lilah cares about Fred's family at all, but Wesley is still her best contact at the Los Angeles office. She has spent more than a little time contemplating exactly what she would have to do in order to alienate him forever; she's pretty sure that messing with Fred's Norman Rockwell relations would figure high on the list.

Of course, if she could pull this off without having her name attached to it, you're talking win-win. She indulges, for a moment, the idea that Wesley might even come to her for advice on the problem. Honestly, as though she cares about that.

She wants to know exactly what Sloane wants done with the frame-up, but she thinks he might prefer to explain in his own time. Too many questions might make her potential conflict more obvious.

Instead she responds to his comment, though she deliberately misinterprets it a bit. "I'd like to think so. I'm much more comfortable in a world of realpolitik than one run by the real naive patriots of the word." Here she's telling more or less the truth. If the current wars are really being run by oil interests, her only real regret is that she's not seeing any of the money.

"Call it a failure of imagination on my part, Mr. Sloane, but it's the people who really believe the rhetoric they spout who worry me."

Again, she's skating dangerously close to the truth, but she's curious how Sloane will react. She grew up surrounded by Cold Warriors, and, though she guesses that Sloane was born a decade after her own father, there's something about him that reminds her of the men who used to come and go late at night from the family house in Georgetown. She can't say why she feels this, and in a moment she feels silly. He's just a banker, a money man, who got the government on his back because he doesn't like to pay his taxes the conventional way. Anything else they say about him is just so much smoke and slander. Right?

Sloane takes the fact she voices no objection to mean she'll do it, or at least pretend to; and so he consider the matter settled for now, and replies to her statement during which he consumed the hors d' oeuvres.

"I dare say you're right, Ms Morgan. There is nothing more dangerous than a man of faith, acting on his convictions."

Which is a bit of a self-advertisement, but then again, why not? She appears to be fishing; let's see how she handles some bait, Sloane thinks.

"Except, perhaps, one who finds his old convictions less than satisfying. A dear friend and I used to joke that we shared an unsentimental patriotism and devotion to our wives, back in the day, and yet we came to... but you do not want to hear an old man's reflections. They're worse than overblown rethoric. Do you, Ms Morgan?"

She has eaten her hors d'oeuvre as well, without signs of either pleasure or displeasure, and the waiter, clearing the table, gives Sloane a bit of a concerned look. He's the chef's son, and has some professional pride. Sloane raises an eyebrow, and the waiter dissappears again.

Lilah assumes Sloane's first remark to refer to himself. This man wastes no words. She has no idea, so far, as to the object of his faith, but Lilah has met many men of strong conviction and found them to have, whatever the belief, a good deal in common with each other. That is not the issue that concerns her.

"Ahh, but, dangerous to whom? That is the question." She says this with a hard look, implying As long as it's not me, we can do business.

Sloane then qualifies his answer, and immediately becomes much more interesting.

Lilah raises her glass to hide a smile. "God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of?" She figures Sloane will either recognize the Springsteen quote and its reference to disguises, brilliant and otherwise, or he will give Lilah credit for the sentiment.

Bruce is, in any case, an improvement on her initial impulse, which was to say, Oh, but those men can be fun. Thinking of Wesley in those first weeks, so dislocated and bewildered, needing somewhere to put a lifetime's worth of shattered belief. Even toying with the notion that he might put it in her. It had turned out to be more complicated than that, of course. It always did.

They eat through the hors d'ouerves, and Lilah doesn't even notice the waiter. People in the service industry rarely intrude on her line of vision, once she has made reasonably sure that they aren't vampires.

In response to Sloane's reminiscence, she says, "Please. Go on." Far preferable to sliding into maudlin reflections about her father or, God forbid, Wesley. Besides, as she's already observed, there are no tangents or pointless asides with this man.

Bruce Springsteen lyrics aren't Sloane's forte, though he can recognize a few songs as much as the next man who lived through the 80s and the late 70s before that, and Marshall seems to have taken that recent assignment as a liberty to dump all sorts of song collections on him. Still, while not recognizing the source of the quote, he appreciates the phrase, and Lilah's elegant use of it. She has something of Irina's ability to fence and use a stiletto. Definitely not a woman to be underestimated, or trusted without reassurance it was in her interest not to stab him in the back, but my, what fun to be with.

"That's assuming the existence of a god or of mercy, doesn't it, Ms Morgan?"

He takes a sip from the reliably excellent Riesling.

"I can't say I ever put my faith in either. On the other hand,"

he leans a bit forward,

"I do believe in trade and exchange. So, why don't we reminisce together, my dear? I'd love to hear your insights."

Quit pro quo can be such an entertaining game to play with a worthy partner, thinks Sloane, and regards Lilah Morgan.

Lilah knows better than to bet against the existence of higher powers; it's only the devotion to a single one above others that causes the trouble.

"I don't know," she says. "So many people have believed in so many gods, over the years, I would think that through sheer dumb luck, at least some of them might exist. It's my philosophy to believe in all of them. Call it Pascal's Wager in extremis. Though, belief, I think, is a different thing than faith. And I would agree that mercy seems to be an exclusively human failing."

When Sloane proposes the quid pro quo, there's really no reason she should be thinking about Hannibal Lecter. Sloane is, like the good doctor, extremely civilized, but she doubts that he dines on human flesh in a literal sense. Although it might be amusing to propose chianti with the next course -- once they started with white, switching to a red would be rather gauche.

Still, Lilah can relate to the instinct to probe around another being's psyche in search of sore spot. And, unlike Clarice Starling, Lilah has no intention of providing Sloane with an honest reminiscence.

"My insights regarding patriots?" She sips the Riesling and says, as lightly as she can. "I'm afraid that my cynicism may be colored by personal experience. My father died before I was able to know him, because of a meaningless war that he was fool enough to believe in."

Like all the best lies, this statement is true and false at once. Lilah knows what the comment implies, and even a careful background check would seem to confirm that Lilah Morgan's father had died in Vietnam when she was a girl.

In fact, Lilah was in her twenties when the man took his own life, and before that day, she would have said she knew him quite well. Since that day, she had learned the lesson many times over. No one ever knew anyone, and very rarely was there much point in making the attempt.

Sloane has checked Lilah's background and knows about the Vietnam death, but then again, he knows what his own files say if she bothered to investigate, which he does expect of her. Changing names and backgrounds is the easiest thing in the world, and as an agent, he used to do it in a heartbeat. So he makes no assumptions based on it.

"Whose cynicsm isn't?"

he replies, equally lightly. "I dare say my own was forged by them as well. I did have that dreadfully cliché moment when I looked up, surrounded by subtropical climate and a lot of dead bodies, and wondered what the hell I was doing there."

Which of course implies he served in Vietnam as well, and that it happened there. While Sloane was occasionally in Vietnam, it was never as a soldier, and he actually associates the place with one of his fondest memories; toasting Sydney's birth together with Jack. Still, his statement is as true as hers was. He had his series of moments like that, and usually in subtropical climates, whether in South America or Indochina, as that was where the CIA was working at the time.

"But they definitely did not lead me to join the peace movement,"

he says and smiles at her. Not that he hadn't wanted to achieve world peace at one time. But in a very different way, and the fact that Nadia was paying the price for what Elena had turned that way into ate at him day and night. Still, no thoughts of a Rambaldi formula added to the water of many of the word's cities can be read from his pleasant, ironic expression.

"I'm afraid I rather came to the mundane conclusion that the rewards of patriotism were too one sided for me."

Also true as far as it went. Getting into business for himself was one of the conclusions he had arrived at, but he also had known that this alone wouldn't satisfy. Arvin Sloane has always needed something to believe in. It was one of the differences between him and Jack Bristow, whose own disillusionment had not led to any of the same results.

The main course arrives, and the waiter asks Lilah whether she wishes to change her drink of choice.

"I don't mean to imply that I'm a pacifist," says Lilah. "I only object to losing those I care for to wars that don't affect me."

She notices, again, the many things that he fails to say, along with the few that he does.

Regarding patriotism, she adds, "Like all forms of loyalty, it does tend to reward those to whom the loyalty is given."

At the waitress's question, Lilah considers. She remembers the old adage, "Beer then liquor. . ." Not a good thing. But in her current state, she is more or less immune to the harmful affects of alcohol. And it might loosen Sloane's tongue.

"Not now, but perhaps after dinner. . ." She looks at Sloane. "A thirty-year Scotch. Lagavulin." Not because it's Wesley's brand. Because it makes a good impression. "And two glasses?" She casts a questioning eye at Sloane, then wishes she hadn't. He wouldn't have asked for her approval.

Those I care about plural. Interesting. And he doesn't think Lilah Morgan just mouthed a platitude. So there was more than one person she had cared about, someone other than that father, and likely than not that person had - well. He'd test that theory in a moment.

Her questioning glance is of course a good thing in the matter of power balance, but there is no reason to fill self-satisfied. Complacency gets you killed.

"By all means,"

Sloane says regarding her suggestion of two glasses and Lagavulin, which is an excellent brand indeed, and, once the waitress is gone, says, casually:

"I envy you then. Losing those one cares about in wars that do affect one, especially when they choose to sacrifice themselves for the other side, is even more galling."

He's willing to bet that this is true for Lilah Morgan as well as for him. Sacrifice, of course, has not to mean sacrifice through death. It can be through life, lived and given and devoted to where it shouldn't be.

"Though as in all matters... it probably depends on your point of view,"

he finishes benignenly, and starts the main course.

Lilah's initial comment is just so much smokescreen. Really. She's been thinking about her father more than usual, lately, but the idea that there are people Lilah Morgan cares for, in the plural. . .well, that's absurd.

Except that now Sloane is hinting at the misfortune occasioned by caring for someone on the other side of the battle lines. She imagines there is a story there, but honestly, it has nothing to do with her. The tendency of her most special projects to gravitate toward (or back toward) Team Angel, notwithstanding.

She begins the main course and takes no hurry to respond. "My war stories," she finally says, "are of course, more of the metaphorical sort. I've never spent any time in the jungle, except as a tourist. Still, I dare to say I have a tale to match any of yours."

Sloane can either take this invitation as a challenge to a battle of tall tales, or an opportunity to spill a bit of truth. Either way Lilah is game. She looks at him, expectantly, and this time, she doesn't defer or offer to go first.

"We're all in the jungle, and I dare say you have, Ms Morgan,"

Sloane replies, and decides that some truth is in order. Not truth about himself directly, though Lilah will be able to draw some conclusions from what he's going to say, if she's as intelligent and resourceful as he thinks she is.

"Once you have seen your best friend self destruct because he was made a fool of by the woman he loved who happened to work for the other side, there isn't much that would surprise you in the ways of human melodrama. Well. Except for a man learning those lessons too well."

Sloane rather doubts Jack thinks of his years at SD-6, spying on Sloane for the CIA, as doing the same thing Irina did when posing as Laura Bristow, but then, Jack has a selective point of view when it comes to those things. In any case, Lilah probably has enough hints for now to deduce he is, or used to be, connected to intelligence.

It will be interesting to see if she comes up with a bit of truth herself in return, or an imaginative lie. He flatters himself that he will be able to tell.

As opposed to Jack Bristow, Arvin Sloane has know that he was lied to for years.

Sloane's reply takes Lilah aback for a moment -- though she hopes she doesn't show it -- because she had been expecting a literal jungle story. It takes her a moment to readjust, so she first imagines some absurd melodrama about a lovely village girl by day, Viet Cong commando by night --

Too many movies, Morgan. Sloane's comment, in fact, hints at something more interesting.

"Of course, Mr. Sloane," she says smoothly. "In a great game such as international finance -- one might say that a man fool enough to fall in love deserves what he gets. An impressive story, but I can indeed top that." She polishes off the last of the Riesling and says, pointedly casual. "I've been the woman. At least," she smiles, "If you ask his friends."

Sloane is amused by the Kipling reference, which proves Lilah came to the right conclusion, and intrigued by the rest. Especially since, based on her earlier comments about senseless wars, she doesn't strike him so much as the type to fool idealists as the type falling for some against her will.

Of course, like Irina, she could be both.

"And did he learn his lessons too well, my dear?"

he asks softly, leaning back while the waiter, having noticed the Riesling was gone, approaches with the Scotch and new glasses.

Lilah would not normally describe Wesley Wyndam-Pryce as a man who had fallen in love with her and, if she was honest, she wasn't really sure who had played whom for the fool. But through this mask of semi-disguise, she can say coolly,

"Absolutely. He became a cautionary tale for idealistic men who fall for the wrong kind of women. Although --" She absently runs a finger across the rim of her glass, pulling a whistling sound from the crystal. "I'm starting to believe it's still a work in progress."

"To works in progress," Sloane says, raising his glass to her. "Personally, I always found finished masterpieces leave one feeling somewhat hollow."

After the toast, the waitress approaches and asks whether they want desert. Sloane tells her to wait a bit, and as she withdraws, he says:

"This reminds me. Naturally, your efforts on my behalf will ensure a financial compensation" - he has included a suggestion for the salary she'd earn as his lawyer among the names, dates and accounts he gave her earlier; it's generous, though not extravagant - "but I think there should be more in the ways of deserts."

Especially if she gives him the Burkles as a way to use counterpressure on Peyton. Even more so if their first dealings work out and they get to the stage where she'll help him procure the Wolfram & Hart Rambaldi artifacts. He reaches in his jacket and pulls out two tickets for
Madama Butterfly. They had originally been planned as a gift for Sydney and Jack, but that had been before Sydney went missing, and ensuing unfortunate events. Giving them to Lilah Morgan after what she had said added an originally unintended but not unsuitable subtext. It was, after all, the story of a woman falling for the wrong kind of man.

"Admittedly it's not La Scala, but then, you'll have a shorter way back home," Sloane says, giving her the tickets.

She can take her work in progress along, unless they're both less than enthusiastic about opera. For a moment, he recalls taking Nadia to see Norma last year, and her joy in it, despite the awkwardness between them; then he surpresses the memory and concentrates on the brunette sitting opposite of him.

"Ah yes. Bringing a task to its conclusion may have a certain satisfaction, but then, in a way, completion eliminates other possibilities." And because every junior high student of literature could speculate on 'the road not taken,' she adds, "Footfalls echo in the memory, Down the passage which we did not take,Towards the door we never opened."

Something about being dead has increased her appreciation for "The Four Quartets." Probably not a preference that bears too much analysis.

As for the possibilities of this meeting, though -- Lilah is ready to file it as a success, once he offers her the opera tickets. "Thank you. It's been much too long since I've attended the opera."

Wesley, she thinks, might accept the invitation, but she'll have to see how their next meeting goes. Besides, he seems most suspicious of her when she offers gifts. There is also that intriguing Bruce Wayne character, who seems to be able to buy anything he wants, and thus might be amused by a woman making the offer. And then, the little artist, the Fisher girl. . .

Yes, so many possibilities. Including selling them for ready cash.

"Now." She looks at the dessert menu. "I believe the chocolate torte was actually described as 'sinful', and I must confess, that is very much my weakness." Sin, chocolate, whatever. She'll allow the man to draw his own conclusions.

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Meeting Lilah Morgan (open to freelilah)

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