Discoveries - Part Four

Discoveries - Part Four

They’d be landing in New York, at La
Guardia, in about fifteen minutes, give
or take their current holding pattern.
Langly shifted imperceptibly in his
narrow seat to steal a peek at Scully
nestled against him. She'd fallen off
nearly ten minutes or so into the flight,
after insisting that she wasn't tired.
But once she'd adjusted her head to the
contour of his biceps, she was gone.
No, she wasn't tired; she was exhausted.

He puckered his mouth, and bit its
insides. Eventually, an unpretentious
smile budded. Scully snored. Who'd have
thought? There were gobs of things he
didn't know about her 'unsnoopable'
personal side, he realized. Despite
having done his hacker homework on her.
What's her favorite color? Does she
like dogs or cats better; or both
equally?

Would she ever consider doing a
Ramones concert with me? Well, maybe
work up to that, he intuited.

But then, why should he know such things?
When had any extra curricula, exempt case
investigation time been made for such
discoveries? She certainly wasn't one of
his regular sleep mates; and never would
be.

But cool was cool. For the here and now,
he enjoyed being her pillow, although his
right shoulder had gone completely numb.
At this glitch in the continuum, there
were scads of things he found himself
being for her; a crutch, an arm and
headrest, an out-and-out doormat. Yet, it
was perfectly all right. All of it.
Even her clamoring for him not to leave
her side for more than a minute. It was
better than all right with him. Besides,
he didn't want to be the cause of her
shedding anymore tears.

The idea of imposition was not even a
pre-cognitive connection. Her need to
have him close to her, although
artificially-inspired, made him glow with
a warmth which was doing wonders thawing
out his intrinsically myopic sensibilities
forged in high school, and which had
shadowed him throughout most of his
university and post-graduate studies.

Usually sensing himself to be socially
challenged, he'd taken refuge in
immersing himself in his academic
pursuits rather than pursuing duplicitous
romantic involvements. His introverted
feelings of debilitating awkwardness and
chronic bashfulness 'around girls,' were
being squashed beneath the crush of her
urgent requests, commanding pouts and
those sweet things she did with her eyes.
Man--those hallucinogenic eyes!

Her insistence that they were a couple,
even though he knew they'd never be one,
once she was back to normal, had him
entranced. Her stubbornness ruled, and
was a tickler. There was no known
antidote for being under this particular
brand of the Scullyspell, he deliberated.
He went with it hook, line and unblinking.
No hesitation involved at this point.
'Nada.' Spanish again, he halted in
mid-thought ream. Frohike's persistence
IS payin' off.

Langly sighed. Yeah, well back to what
enthralled. Being desired so fiercely
was hypnotic. It harked back to his drug
days, and he recalled what he'd told her
at the movies. If they had been a couple
back then, he wouldn't have dropped even
as much as an aspirin. Feeling good sans
chemical stimulus would have been the
order of the day.

Was this what feeling so desired did to a
man? Desired? No. The more accurate
terminology was craved, hungered for;
lusted after. Down with that...well,
let's not go extreme, he cautioned.
Although, it was as if she'd never get
enough of him, though. And all he'd
allowed them to do was smooch and hug a
few times; if technicality were being
infused into the picture.

Of all the dumb luck. He ordered himself
not to get used to this set-up. What
sense did it make to get comfy in a
relationship (the contextual texture of
the word made him feel good, so his mind
okayed its usage) that had no future? A
fluke of a relationship. Susanne would
be at the airport with her junk to shoot
Scully up, and back to reality.

Oh, well, he rationalized, and renewed
his interest in the laptop’s version of
the schematic he'd downloaded from his
dedicated system, at least I got to live
the dream for a little while. A dream I
get to say was real until her trip ended.

...'She's so high, high above me. She's
so lovely...she's so high...like
Cleopatra, Joan of Arc...or Aphrodite...
she's so high; high above me...

'She comes to speak to me...I freeze
immediately...'cause what she says sounds
so unreal...(not one hundred percent sure
of the exact lyrics which followed,
Langly, as was his habit, ad libbed) and
somehow I can't believe that anything
should happen...I know where I belong and
nothin's gonna happen...'

Langly gazed upon Scully lost in
aspiration, thinking, for a fraction of a
second, that for as many times as she'd
kissed him, one of the smackers would
have taken, and he should've been a
prince by now.

His gray matter seemed to work a lot
better at this altitude of thirty-five
thousand feet, he considered, rather than
at their, at times, claustrophobic den;
despite his present ride on the roller
coaster of emotional vagaries. He
hastened to encode his last bit of
finagling with the problematic program
before saving it for safekeeping. There
was something intransigently familiar
about that last gush of data. Why was
Susanne's antidote's molecular formula
messing with his head? Though obtuse in
atomic structure, there was a haunting
similarity in its atomicity
with...with...

"Cutie?" Scully rolled her head back, as
though doing so in slow motion, to loll
against her seat’s rigid backrest, trying
to focus bleary eyes. "Wh...where are
we?" They captured his, and held them
fast.

Momentarily, he thought she was herself
again, with 'the look', she was giving
him; the gavel at the ready. But, nope;
she was still on ionospheric leave, he
agilely assessed. There was no way she'd
still be calling him, 'cutie,' and
flashing those sumptuous bedroom eyes at
him if she were no bunk Scully, returned.
"We're on the shuttle, Dana. We're in
the process of making our approach."

"Shuttle?" she said in a small, uncertain
voice. "Are w-we in sp-space?"

"Uh-uh, nah. Negatory." He grinned at her,
skimming her nose with his index finger,
with her looking so angelic, but, so wholly
doped-up. "You're spaced out, but we ain't
astronauts." He removed an errant strand
of hair from her nose which was straddling
it. "We're on the flight from D-C to New
York. As in City." Single-handedly, he
closed the cover down over the laptop.
"We're breezin' into the Big Green Apple
to hook you up, Punkin."

"I'm thir...sty..." All of what he'd just
said made no sense.

He brushed his fingertips against her downy,
flushed cheek. "I'll get you a Poland
Spring after we land. That should be real
soon."

She stuck her lower lip out, and he knew
he was a goner. "B...But I want a-a ice
coffee--now! Pleeeese?" She yawned
widely then, and assailed his eyes with
hers again, drowning him in her pools of
limpid aqua.

Langly tore his eyes away from her face
in search of a flight attendant. "Lemme
see what I can do, Dana..." Seated on
the aisle of the small, two seats across
aircraft, as he was, he stuck his head
out into the narrow walkway and scouted
for some personnel. Off to the right,
and a row up, the conversation Byers and
Mulder were carrying on momentarily
snagged his attention.

"So, what did you tell Skinner?"

"As little as possible. Told him Scully
and I are meeting a contact in New York
with a hot lead on the current case."
Mulder looked out the window, to note the
dusk extending its reach over the eastern
seaboard. The pastel hues of blues,
oranges and reds which suffused the cloud
cover, bespoke of the warm spring day's
former lighted beauty. "He's really good
about these things when I don't give him
straight answers. Something I've learned
the hard way over the years." He turned
back to Byers. "How much did Susanne
tell you over the phone?"

"Not much, of course. She can't risk...
well, you know. She's safe as long as
she keeps them confident of her loyalty,
and second guessing." Perilously, for as
long as they needed her. He knew that
was a critical fact of her life. Byers
looked at his watch, and wondered how much
longer they'd be up in the air. Fear,
linked to dread, for her weighed heavily
on his mind. "I brought her up to speed
on Scully's present predicament."

"What did she say when you told her?"

"It's what she didn’t say, Mulder."
Byers forced himself to look his
distraught friend in the eyes. "Scully's
condition may be quite unrelated to any
post aftereffects of her derivatives...
she'll have to give her a thorough
examination, first, before reaching any
conclusion."

"Well, I should hope so," Mulder tossed,
in wiseacre tenor, sounding hotly ticked
off. "But, I'll tell you right now,
she's not off the hook until Scully's
Scully again. Even if Susanne has to
make curing her, HER LIFE'S WORK, that's
the way it'll be. She's the organic
chemical expert. Like it or not, Scully's
her hapless guinea pig now." Mulder sat
up as though being called to attention in
his seat, willing Byers' comprehension of
the profound import attached to every
word he'd just uttered.

Langly nodded in composite agreement. His
hearing was clarity itself thanks to his
religiously having worn earplugs to every
headbanger concert he'd ever attended over
the course of many years.

"Wh-where’s my ice coff--"

"Working, working," Langly assured. He
stuck his laptop into the pocket of the
preceding seat, unbuckled his seat belt
and popped up as though wired, but wobbly.
Spying an attendant in the tail section,
he said to Scully, "I'll be right back.
Won't be long. Real deal."

"If th-they don't have i-ice coffee, make
i-it Coke!"

"No Coke," Langly corrected.

"Pepsi th-then!"

"It's decaffeination, or nothing. C'mon,
be cool. It's for your own good,
Punkin..."

"No-no-no. I wa-want--"

"Is everything okay here?" The short-
haired, five foot, three inches tall
female attendant from the tail section
approached, sounding solicitous. "Sir,
I'm going to have to ask you to take your
seat. The Captain has the seatbelts
light turned on."

"No prob. It's just, uh...can. Can my
friend here--"

"I'm NOT his friend, Mi-iss. I'm h-his
GIRLfriend! He-he's mine--you can't have
h-him!"

Langly energetically nodded to appease
Scully. "Yeah, cool. She's my ol' lady."
Under his breath, he said to the
attendant, "A totally possessive chick."
Speaking normally again, he continued,
"'Kay, like can she get a little water?
She's big time thirsty." As if knowing
what the attendant was going to say, he
hurriedly added, "Not a news flash.
We're about to nest, but can she get some?
She's the kind of chick you don't wanna
say no to. Least I don't. Would
appreciate it heaps."

"The only thing we've got left in the way
of beverages is Pepsi."

"Pepsi. Yes, please," Scully said,
beaming.

"No Pepsi, Dana."

"Yes Pepsi, Cutie!" The determination to
have what she wanted was a palpable
entity. With nostrils flared, and temper
tantrum eyes, she suckered him in. To
deny her would be his Waterloo of
recrimination.

Langly scratched his head, looking
baffled; acutely stressed-out. His
resolve to be firm depleted; on a hiatus
of compromise. "Cou...uh, could you make
it a very little Pepsi, Miss? We're
tryin' to wean her off the stuff."

"Right-o, sir, I'll bring it."

"Yeah, thanks." Once Langly had plopped
himself back down into his seat, he gave
Scully a [you don't play fair] look to
acknowledge, "Winning's getting to be a
real bad habit with you. Hope she makes
'very little,' very little. But who
knows? Maybe at this stage having more
caffeine won't make any diff. Lettin'
you have it beats makin' me feel like
a heel. So, go ahead, knock yourself
out." He faked roping her into a
headlock.

Scully flinched back, but when she
realized he was clowning said, "You a-are
so sweet, Cutie. 'Sp-specially when y-
you talk b-big, an'...an' kooky. I-I
like you a-a whole bu-bunch. Th-this
much..."

She measured off his likeableness on her
makeshift imaginary scale with a
generously wide span between her
outstretched hands, and followed that up
with more kissing on his cheek, nose,
then the other cheek. Behaving as if
she'd done this for most of her life, she
nestled her face into the niche of his
neck, sighing contentedly. His baby fine
hair felt delicious against her face.

"Thanks, and you're welcome." Langly
tweaked her nose affectionately. When
her Pepsi came, he swiped it out of the
attendant's hand, and took a big slurp
from the plastic cup, which did leave
very little for Scully. Just to be on
the safe side, he judged.

She didn't seem to mind what he'd done,
and drained the cup dry. "I lo-love
Pepsi!" she said, and then chortled into
the cup.

"I'm still getting that Poland Spring, or
any bottled H-two-oh on hand for ya, once
we land. Your getting dehydrated ain't
in the plan." He re-buckled his seatbelt
and closed his eyes, easing his head
against the headrest. A goofy guy smile
diffused over his relaxed face after she’d
left off kissing both eyelids. Once having
gingerly removed his glasses, that is.

"'I wish that I had Jessie's girl,'" he
began singing, a tad off key, which made
Scully laugh. "...Where can I find me a
woman like that..." He opened his eyes,
coaxed her to give him back his ocular
pride and joy, and drilled her impish
eyes with his. "Yep, real used to you,"
he told her, and nudged her cheek with
his nose. <A pinch of the way you
normally are, an' a whole lotta how you
are now, Baby!> "Word-up, Daaaay--na."

His seat's backrest bucked suddenly then,
and Frohike jumped to his feet, following
the violent kick he'd just planted.
Scully's cup flew out of her hand,
leaving her looking disoriented and
somewhat perplexed.

"Man, this turbulence sucks," Langly
griped, with an obnoxious sounding barb
mired in his deftly aimed tone. "Better
make sure you're cinched tight, Princess.
Can't lose you now."

"Keep your gnarly meathooks to yourself,
you fugitive from a...from a...a uh ...
commune," Frohike rained down from
overhead.

Langly guffawed. "Commune? Is that the
best you can crank, 'Grumpy?'" he
rejoined with a snort. "I tried livin'
in one, once, just afta turnin' twenty-
one. Couldn't get inta all that natural
turf. Missed Mickey Dee's too much.
Those plantations are more your speed,
Mista Potato Head."

"Up yours, Lord Geeks-R-Us."

"Get bent, So-icky. Hey, when was the
last time you squinted at yourself in a
mirror?"

"At least I can see my face. With all
that hair, how do you tell the front from
the back, Goldilocks? I still say that
when we make the scene with Susanne, we
convince her to shoot you up with A-H
Gas, make the suggestion, and shove
scissors in your hand. No--make that a
razor. The cue ball look would suit
you."

Raising his voice, Langly reprehended,
zeroing in for the deciding verbal
strafe. "You're almost there, baldie,
check it out. You didn't give Rogaine a
total chance."

"Shut-up, Langly!"

"Make me!"

"'Ya! Basta ya! Este es el colmo!'"
Silvio broke out in Spanish (of the
mercurial variety); his second language.
He was as fluent in it, as he was in his
native tongue, with English a neck and
neck third. Although, he had a most
distinct way of wrapping his English
around the thought he was trying to
convey.

"Does this 'inutil' bickering never
cease?" he spouted, sounding exactly as
though he fit in as one of the 'boys.'
"I decided to join, aside from the point
that there was no time to detail my
discoveries at your place, because I
start to care about the welfare of the
'bellita,' the beautiful one, but these
'broncas' these spats must finish! If
not, I am on the next flight to Rio. I
leave you with the encrypted facts,
undeciphered.

"And, I do not think you will have an
easy time deciphering the information
since the code to crack is Porto-
Esparanto. By the time you find one of
the two people other than me in
'Brasilia' who can translate, the
information will be of little value
then."

Frohike angled around from Langly’s
backrest to glare at Silvio. "Don't
sweat us, man. Putting 'Gangly'
(trumpeting the misnomer for sardonic
emphasis) in his place is my way of
life," he advised, but kept Silvio's
warning under advisement. He sat back
down before the slimmer of the two female
attendants had the chance to open her
intriguing mouth, as Frohike assessed,
directing him to buckle back up.

"Yo, So-icky, out-dissed ya this round no
con..."

"It's a draw, Garth--and I DON'T mean
Brooks," Frohike nimbly bantered, then
genuflected like the sport he was
pretending to be, to Silvio.

"Hey, 'Hike, where'd you say you're from
again...uh, it's NOME, Alaska, right?
Hullo--"

"Don't fi-fight with 'Hi-k-kee!" Scully
puled.

She pouted childishly, then cracked the
twist of a teasing smile at Langly,
looking like a sprite gamine in her late
teens. She stroked his peach fuzz
stubbly cheek lightly, and extracted his
true sentiments, along with his grin
which widened her smile.

"We're not fighting...well, not exactly.
See..." He winked, then reached around
her to raise the window's shade as the
flight attendant, who possessed the mouth
much to Frohike’s liking, instructed.
She sauntered off to reclaim her position
at her station. "It's this game we slide
into. Sorta like can you dis this.
We've been doin' it ever since knowin'
each other. Translation...eons of time."

"Dis?"

"Disrespect. Major league put-downs."

"B-But, I-I like 'Hike."

Close to her ear, he murmured, "Yeah, me
too. He's my bestest bud, but I'll never
tell. We don't mean most of what we
fling. Just goofin' on each other, is
all. Keeps us minimally sane. He an'
Byers, an' yours truly of course...well,
we're family. We're totally tight. Like
we're sibs. I'm the middle kid so I get
to act like a punk all I want. But, man,
I'd feel naked without my bros. Stark,
starin' naked if we ever went our
separate ways. At least, I think I
would..." He sighed and regarded the
crown of her head thoughtfully. My
bread's on it's intensely natural, he
concluded, once and for all. None of
that outta a box stuff for her.

"Naked?--"

[FLIGHT ATTENDANTS, PREPARE FOR LANDING]

"Uh huh," Langly confirmed with an
unequivocal toss of his glossy mane.

"I...I wan-na do na-ked with y-you,
Cutie. Please? You...y-you're the b-
best. I l-like you b-best! Pleaaase?"
One could have cut the conviction in her
voice with a machete.

His sugar-coated imagery sent his throat
muscles into spasms. The familiar,
undaunted hotness scaled the heights of
his neck, with rapid blushing in tow, and
the subsequent lowering, and casting of
his eyes away from the supple source of
enticement, steadying the rope he usually
hanged himself with. His tried and true
self-deprecating habits, well-traveled
norms which relentlessly prodded when
anything remotely connected with
confronting feminine sexuality head-on,
were hard to break. He tried clearing
his closed throat, but it wouldn't. His
reply was protracted, and the wistfulness
embedded in his voice was surf-worthy.

"That screams, Punkin, and once you're
straight, if that idea doesn't bite,
then, sure--we'll rap. But I'm not
getting my heart set, Princess. NONE of
what you're sayin' or doin' is real.
When your head's screwed on nice an'
tight again, it'll be back to negative
square one. I'm not a realist for
nothin'," he awarded, solely for his
benefit.

Scully blinked sleepily and re-settled
her head on his shoulder with a yawn.
Langly brushed his lips against her
perspiring forehead, and leaned the side
of his swimming head weightlessly against
hers, wishing for the moon.

"T-take me ho-home, Cutie..."

Following the ebb and flow of several
weight shifting moments, there was a
remarkable series of gentle bumps,
followed by the nearly imperceptible
releases of a good many addled
exhalations.

"That's the whole idea, Princess.
...'Cause, it'll keep bein' said way
long after we're all gone. There's
no place like it..."

ONE-HALF HOUR LATER
6:45 p.m. Delta Terminal

"Whose bag are we still waiting for?"
Mulder demanded to know, looking about
him in nitpicky fashion.

"Byers'. Who else's?" Frohike piped up,
feeling just as impatient. He observed
how his distinguished-looking friend,
with the Brazilian in his company, were
hovering closest to the baggage carousel's
egress of anybody who was, as of yet,
agonizing over the non-appearance of their
luggage.

"Where's the odd couple?"

Frohike glowered, constraining himself
never to think of them in those terms.
"He's getting her something to drink.
Again."

"Whereupon she'll promptly need to take
another leak." Mulder grimaced, reliving
the embarrassment of he and Langly having
had to talk her through unlocking the
plane's lavatory door after she'd
accidentally locked herself in. "Her
thirst has got to be another symptom
connected with this condition."

Begrudging his agreement with a nod,
Frohike snatched up his compact, but
solidly-packed flight shoulder bag and
stalked over to the carousel to join
Silvio and the still expectant Byers.
What did Scully see, even through sloshed
eyes, in ragtag Lord Wusshammer, anyway?

The Freudian implications made him want
to swear off women forever; well, perhaps
not all women. Just one drop dead
gorgeous, outshiningly stubborn redhead.
He knew he was being petty, what with she
so not herself, but he couldn’t help it.
Of the three of them, (he didn’t include
Byers, naturally) he was the only one
who'd made no bones about broadcasting
his head over heels, "'bad' jones" he had
for Scully. In what unholy book was it
written that Langly was the guy with the
inside track? At least where her
subconscious was concerned. The nerdiest
one of our merry bunch is her subjective
heartthrob? The waste--the total
injustice of it all, man!

<Why, even in Vegas, they'd waltzed off
to dinner, arm and arm, much to my shock.
Way before all this crapola came down.
Scully was smiling so, the next morning,
I thought she must've scored--but with
Langly, a guy who thinks sharin' a box of
Cracker Jack at a movie matinee is
romantic? No way, I'll never buy it>

With these, and many more disturbing
ideas swirling in his mind, he made like
the ‘black oil’ through the crowd of
people milling at the carousel, until he
stood beside Byers. "I see you, and your
baggage haven’t been reunited yet."

"No. Not..." He paused, wondering
whether a man dressed in Army and Navy
store fatigues was clutching his rollie.
"No, not yet."

"I think you should stop wasting time
here, man. Go file a lost luggage claim,
so we can hit it. Susanne won't wait at
the taxi stand all night, ya know."

"I know," Byers grumbled, clearly
irritated, "but I don't want to leave
without..."

"C'mon, let's move. Your little
chickadee's not about to fly without us."

"Wait, Frohike, here it comes..."

In the midst of the terminal's hubbub of
a food court, Langly looked on in dismay
as Scully grabbed the chilled can of
Coke, and a huge salt-encrusted pretzel
from the overworked, short on patience
male food server. Langly allowed his head
to languish, and as he did so, rifled a
fleeting glance at the droplet-beaded
bottle of Naya in his hand, and shrugged.

"Guess she's gotta have it," he mitigated
and sighed in resignation. "I have some
serious chillin' ta do. It's all moot.
Relief is just a pop away through those
doors. Then the bubble bursts. The one
an' only looker who ever wanted me picks
up all her marbles and books out of
Langlyland as fast as the lab-conjured
scuzz can carry her. Craptacular." The
way it's gotta play, he roundly hounded
himself. <You really are some kind of
egomaniacal pisser. Da-da, you are what
you reap>

"That'll be five-fifty, ma'am," the
complaisant cashier, a heart-shaped faced
Dominican woman, with a flawless cinnamon
complexion, in her late twenties, seated
at the far end of the food service area,
called down. So adept at her job was
she, she'd already done the retail math.
"You can pay for that here."

Langly gently ushered Scully along down
the line, past indecisives who couldn't
make up their minds, despite the limited
choices. "I got hers, and this water.
What's the damage?"

The perky, long-haired Latina grinned at
them both, immediately taking a liking to
the duo. "The damage's eight even, sir."
She studied Langly's platinum tresses,
wondering whether she should allow
Blanca, her homegirl, who was enrolled in
cosmetology school, to bleach her hair
for her next homework assignment.

"Two bills and two shiny coins with
George's face minted on 'em for this?"
He hefted the eight ounces of liquid in
conjunction with his contesting
expression which was the epitome of 'is
this for real?'

"Airport prices," the young lady kidded,
with a playful glint in her eye. "Legit
rip-off, Port Authority style. We have a
suggestion box..."

"Got that right. Hey, if I had more
time, I'd drop in my two cents," Langly
jibed, and dug into his jacket pocket to
fish out his wallet. "There ya go, and
yo, keep the change. We don't even have
time to wait for the rung up receipt."

"Hey, thanks," the cashier said after
he'd handed her a ten dollar bill.
"Here, take these." She grappled up two
Milky Way bars and fairly threw them at
Langly as he made the hasty in tandem
getaway. "They're a buck each. You look
like a guy who's up on the down stroke
with candy."

Langly nodded in grand satisfaction...a
'compadra.' He favored her with a
generous, we speak the same language type
of grin. "'Muchas, muchas.' Up all the
way."

"Later," she bade to Langly's and Scully's
departing forms. As she watched them
disappear on the escalator, she made up
her mind. Blanca would have her first
unofficial customer tonight.

It took them all of two minutes to arrive
at the bustling taxi stand, to regroup
with their companions, just in time to
see a light-skinned black man, about
Mulder's build and stature, bee bop walk
away from Byers.

With his mouth agape, he read the scrap
of paper which had been shoved into his
hand. He began mouthing the written
words.

"A mash note?" Langly inquired,
swaggering up to Byers to get a look.

"No." Byers telegraphed his disquietude
to Mulder with a haunted facial expression.
"It's from Susanne."

"She's not coming, is she," Mulder said.
Byers handed him the message. He
finished reading it, then said
cryptically, "Quickest way to Sea Gate in
Brooklyn. Anybody know?"

Following his preventing Scully from
opening up the laptop, Langly spirited
the note out of Mulder’s hand. After
mentally digesting it, he smugly replied,
"B-Q-E to the Belt. Cropsey Ave. exit.
Used to live here. In the Village for
about two years. My 'Panic in Needle
Park' blackout days. They'll be traffic
strangulation at this hour though." He
handed the note back to Byers and patted
him on the back. "I'm sure everything's
cool. Don't go postal."

"I'll get a car," Mulder stated, already
on the move. "It's times like these
when having an expense account comes in
real handy. Everybody stay put till I
pull up in the rental, ahead of the
stand."

Frohike turned to Byers and said, "I
don't like this, buddy. Why couldn't she
come herself? Or call even?"

Byers nodded. "Neither do I, and I'm
afraid to speculate why." Worriedly, he
looked at the note again. "I hope she's
all right..."

"I hope the same for us," Frohike said
in obdurate solemnity as, protectively,
he slipped his arm around Scully's waist.

Langly nodded, looking just as solemn,
and for reassurance, gently placed his
hand on Melvin's shoulder. "Yeah, me
three..."

Discoveries - Part Five