Drinking and sharpening knives should not go hand-in-hand, but that is not the first bad decision Lilly has made lately. Nor will it be her last one. The soothing action of whetstone on blade snaps her out of her depressed funk, but the space left vacant by the sadness is soon filled with anger. Leaving Saffron and the empty bottle behind, she goes back to the bar. “Gimme Betty’s Special,” she demands of the bartender, naming the roughest alcohol she can think of.
He looks at her hard for a moment and then says, “All right, but don’t fly anything.” He places a bottle on the counter and then turns to pull out a shot glass for her. When he turns back, credits are on the counter, but the bottle and the customer are gone.
Lilly stomps unsteadily back to Egon’s lab to initiate another secure call to Durian. Comm in one hand, bottle in the other, she waits impatiently for him to answer.
Durian picks up after just one ring. “Lilly, Lilly! Are you ready to come forward?” he asks breathlessly.
“Did you… Did you break up with me?” she demands, words slurring.
“Lilly, are you turning yourself in or not?” he asks again, not addressing the matter.
“You… you hung up on me!”
“Lilly, you released a bunch of terrorists!” Durian replies in frustration. “And not just released, you gave them to literal rebels.”
Despite her inability to produce the correct sibilants, she proudly replies, “I am a terrorist! I’ll stick by my friends! And I’m going to take down Mengsk!”
“What!? You’re going to—Why would you do that Lilly?” All he hears in her voice is defiance, not alcohol.
“Why not?” she counters.
“‘Cause he’s the only thing keeping humanity together!”
“Mengsk is a jerk!” Lilly shoots back. Durian breathes deeply, but he seems at a loss for words. “Y-you want to break up with me over that? Fine! I was never good enough for you, anyway.” The words roll out of Lilly in a torrent. “But you don’t hang up on me. That’s just rude!” Her mind lurches drunkenly from topic to topic. The next thing that comes out is a non sequitur, but one Durian understands. “And another thing… Three times, Durian! Three times!”
“Yeah, uh, maybe that had more of an effect on you than we thought,” he replies sadly. Gone are the days of reassuring her about her resocialization hang-up.
Angry and chatting, Lilly barrels on. “You know what? Men suck.”
Did she say men or Mengsk? Durian wonders, but he cannot get a word in edgewise.
“Zerg? ‘No problem,’ he says. Resocialized three times? ‘No problem.’ But this? This you can’t handle?!”
With the slurring and rapidly increasing pitch of her last outburst, Durian finally realizes that Lilly is drunk. “This is how you solve your problem?” he asks, disappointed. “You’re just going to get drunk? This is how raiders solve their problems, right?”
“Yeah! You know?”
Durian did not intend for his words at the end of that first phone call to signal that he was using their relationship as leverage to get Lilly to turn herself in. He really did want what was best for her. But now, now he sees how pathetic she can be. “You know, Raynor’s been holding his rebellion for the past four years, and he ain’t done nothing but get pissed drunk. You want to get drunk with him, be my guest. You want to go date some hydralisk, fine. I—”
“What is this dating hydralisks?” Lilly sputters. “No one dates hydralisks.”
“Yeah. Look, I’m sorry. I guess you’re right. It’s not working out.” All sympathy is gone from his voice. “You’re a terrorist; I’m a soldier. Terrorists gotta terrorize, right?”
Lilly takes another swig from her bottle. It is almost empty. “Maybe you handle break-ups better than me. Maybe you can have your heart stomped on all over the place and be fine. But me? I’m going to take down Mengsk,” she declares.
“I’m gonna s—”
But Lilly does not hear whatever else he has to say. She hangs up before Durian finishes.
“I’ve got some more, if you want,” a voice says from behind her. Lilly spins around unsteadily and see Egon holding out a flask of liquid.
“Yeah,” she says sulkily. “My boyfriend dumped me for being a terrorist.”
Egon rolls his stool over to her. “I don’t know, it kinda sounded like you got rid of him.” He pours some of the concoction in his Erlenmeyer flask into a beaker for her and offers it. She may assume it is some sort of moonshine, but it is actually a treatment for her current inebriated state. It will not sober her up, but it should at least help the hangover.
Lilly takes a sip. “He wants me to turn myself in.”
“Don’t do that! The Dominion will kill you!”
“I know!”
“Why would he tell you to do that?”
“I don’t know. I should call him again.” Lilly fumbles her comm back out and turns unsteadily toward the computer bank.
“No, no!” Egon says, jumping to his feet and interposing himself. “You used up all the keys we generated. You can’t call him again, or they’ll be able to trace us.”
“Oh.” Lilly wilts.
“What the hell was he thinking? Why would he want you to turn yourself in?” Egon asks again, hoping she will see the inappropriateness of the demand.
“He’s such a good person. He’s too good for me,” she sobs, melting into a blubbering mess. “He’s too nice.”
“He didn’t sound nice,” Egon tries.
“He’s so understanding… Such an upstanding person…” She continues to sob, and Egon awkwardly pats her shoulder. Eventually, she cries herself out. Egon escorts her back to Saffron to make sure she gets there in one piece since she is still quite drunk. When they reach the hangar entrance, Lilly claps him on the shoulder. “You’re all right for a science guy,” she tells him.
“Strictly speaking, I studied engineering,” he corrects her.
“Right, right.” She pats him on the back one last time, then boards the ship and collapses on her bunk.