Moonlightaholics

Here is another offering to challenge 154, 'New Year, New Life'. This is a companion piece to 'Before', each of which is a conversation between Lilah and the two men she loved. As always, I don't own the characters, but I love playing with them.

Enjoy!!

After

“Is there anything you need, dear?”

“Maybe some new legs, but you can’t help me with that. Nobody can.”

“Ray, there’s still hope….”

“Not being able to walk is bad enough, but not being able to love you like I want is killin’ me, Lilah.”

“Give it time, you’ve only been home a week...”

“When we promised ‘for better or worse’, I sure as hell didn’t think it meant this.”

“We should be thankful you’re alive. There are thousands of war widows that would give anything to have their husbands back.”

“I know, but you don’t understand how helpless I feel…”

“Don’t I? Every day you were gone, I prayed for your safe return. I held on to the hope you’d come home to me. When I got that telegram saying you’d been killed, I nearly died myself. I never felt so helpless as when I realized you were gone forever.”

“Damn that idiot who lost my dog tags!”

“Maybe there was a reason they got lost...”

“Yeah, stupidity. It breaks my heart knowing the hell I put you through, havin’ to work and all. A man’s supposed to take care of his wife, not the other way around.”

“We’ve both been through hell, but you’re home now and that’s all that matters.”

“What about the family we dreamed of, Lilah? The children I wanted to give you, I can’t anymore. Not without some kind of miracle.”

“Why so pessimistic? Miracles have already happened. You survived war. You came home to me, even though I thought God had taken you away. I guess sometimes God grants us what we want, but not always in the way we want it.”

“But you’d have made such a wonderful mother. Thinking of you with our baby in your arms kept me going. Now…”

“Now we focus on getting you healthy.”

“I guess. At least Mick looked in on you. Seems he fixed up some things around here.”

“I think it was his way of dealing with grief and helping me with mine.”

“You know Mick always had a soft spot for you. Hafta say I’m kinda surprised he hasn’t come over. I’d like to thank him for all he’s done.”

“Mick had to leave town. He said …. he was glad that you were still alive, but thought you and I needed some time to ourselves.”

“Just like him, you know? Always thinking of his friends first. When’s he coming back?”

“He didn’t really know.”

“You know, his ugly mug was the last thing I saw before the lights went out. He kept telling me everything was going to be OK. Well, he was almost right.”

“Ray, Mick felt ….guilty, thinking he survived and you didn’t. I feel guilty, too, for thinking about starting over without you.”

“Why? You both thought I was dead, thanks to that danged army screw-up.”

“You’re not angry with me, then?”

“Of course not. Lilah, why are you crying?”

“Ray, there’s something I need to tell you.”

This is the way it should have been - I've always thought the ending of What's Left Behind was a cop-out.

You've nailed down all three characters so nicely in these two pieces - I love Ray's rough-around-the-edges speech and Lilah's dancing around the subject until she just has to tell Ray about Mick.

Bravo, babe...just bravo...

Now I'm sniffling.

Wow. Really, really good. Absolutely believable and true to the characters....and their voices.

Well done.

You can hear Lilah working up to telling him as the conversation goes on... and I love the way she drops in these little lead-in lines:

darkstarrising wrote:“Maybe there was a reason they got lost...”

darkstarrising wrote:I guess sometimes God grants us what we want, but not always in the way we want it.”

And she's right. They've been given a true gift. One with very hefty price, mind you... but a gift nonetheless. The family they both need, and someone to focus their love and attention on. Who knows--maybe without Robert, Ray would have lost the courage to go on. And as hard as it would be to hear that your wife and your best buddy had fallen in love, maybe Ray could accept that the two people he loved best in the world, and who were grieving together for him, would naturally turn to each other for another kind of comfort.

As difficult as this conversation is, I see it as the true beginning of their lives together. Their new life, as a family. And for better or for worse, in this scenario, they owe that to Mick.

Thanks, ladies

This piece and its companion 'Before', came about in a really strange way and ties into the discussion of inspiration for stories. The piece a actually intended for this challenge never got finished and was a conversation between Lilah and Ray after she had told him she was pregnant. In that piece, Ray's reaction is less than sympathetic, but I found myself asking when and how she told him. What was each of them actually feeling before the bombshell was dropped? Why didn't Lilah tell Mick, if she knew she was pregnant before he left? And yes, P'Gal, I fully agree that she did know and that Robert was Mick's son and not Ray's. And the ending of 'What's Left Behind' was a terrible cop out, which could have been rectified if they had had a second season. Robert holding onto the picture of his father's unit suggested that maybe he would have done some digging of his own.

You're right, alle, that 'After' tried to show how Lilah eased Ray into what was going to be a difficult truth for him to hear. He wanted children, but knew he couldn't give them to her, hence the line about God granting things we want, but not necessarily in the way we want them. She knows he already feels inadequate, and that his reaction could send him spiraling into despair or anger or with time, acceptance.

P'Gal I remembered how Ray talked in the episode - glad it came through in this piece.

And since 'After' was written before 'Before', the last line of 'After', where Lilah has something to tell Ray, is almost mirrored in the first line of 'Before', where she has something to ask Mick.

Wonderful.

And entirely logical.

Eventually, after the inevitable storm, they decided to stay together/

This is what subsequent seasons should have let us see,

Thank you!

Jenna

Thanks, Jenna and I whole-heartedly agree. It must not have been easy for Ray and Lilah, but at least they had Robert.

This is the way it should have been. Ray was a true friend to Mick and he would have asked about him. And Lilah wasn't the woman to cheat on him by not telling him the truth. I can see it happening like this and I would have loved it if it was like this. I didn't like the end of WLB.

francis wrote:This is the way it should have been. Ray was a true friend to Mick and he would have asked about him. And Lilah wasn't the woman to cheat on him by not telling him the truth. I can see it happening like this and I would have loved it if it was like this. I didn't like the end of WLB.

Thanks, francis I, too, didn't like the way WLB ended. If there had been a second season, perhaps they could have picked up this story line again, this time with Mick finding out that Robert was his son.

This is absolutely what should have happened.

cassysj wrote:This is absolutely what should have happened.

Thanks, Carol I wish that we had seen more of what happened between Ray and Lilah. Maybe if there had been a second season, we would have.