Disclaimer in Part 1 The Date - Part 3 Dulles Airport Expressway 7:00 A.M. >From the van's lumpy backseat, Scully reiterates for the third redun- dant time, "Look, Langly, stop beating yourself up. I should have gotten the anti-theft device fixed, but I kept putting it off." She pats Langly's shoulder with definitiveness, while he's in the throes of negotiating a switch into the far right hand lane to make the exit for United's terminal. "So just stop already, 'kay? The Saturn's tagged with the Bureau. They'll locate it, regardless. The FBI always recovers its vehicles. That's a done deal. So, to coin a phrase, 'be cool.'" "Sure," Langly readily agrees, "only, if I were you, I still wouldn't get my hopes up about seeing it again. Even as we speak, it may already be chopped up, or stripped clean down to the chassis for its parts." Lislita angles around in the front seat and gives her cousin, sitting pretty, smack dab in the center of the springy seat, a warm smile, feeling a lot more relieved than she did when Langly and she trooped back to the apartment in the wee hours of this morning. Her cousin hadn't been as ticked off as they'd both feared, slinking in, with only two hours to spare till the crack of dawn. "That's one of the things I adore so much about Langly, Dana," Lislita whizzes in, "he's always looking on the brighter side..." Her eyes are pari passu orbs of mischief. "Who, me?" "You've noticed that too, huh?" Scully tosses into the conversational frying pan. "The perennial paranoidal optimist. That's Langly." "Yo, watch that paranoid stuff. Want me to get a complex?" "What do you mean, 'get a complex?' Since when hasn't it been full- blown, Langly?" Scully needles. "Wow...and I thought I had the cover-up down, man." Scully chuckles again. "Although, I must admit...when you guys hadn't shown up by three A.M., I was ready to call out the National Guard. So, I guess it's true what they say..." "What do THEY say?" Langly pitches, hyper-inquisitively. "'Paranoia will destroy ya'..." "God, Scully. Where'd you get such tripe? But it does sound like you all right," Langly banters in an amazingly relaxed mood as well. "Like, remember, we were bookin' back from Arlington. Wanna know how many buses it takes to get from there to your place?" Narrowly, he misses the bumper of an airport shuttle bus ahead of them. Lislita looks askance, smiling. He balloons his cheeks, then noisily deflates. "Uh, not really," Scully assures him good-naturedly. "I'll take you at your tone that it's got to be some staggering figure." "Well, not exactly staggering, but it took four." "Why didn't you catch a cab?" "Snag a cab at three in the morning? What city do *you* live in?" he badgers in high jest. "'Sides, cabbies give me the brush, maybe they've got something weird against blonds. Anyway, we were lucky to have the buses stop, let alone make the right connections in reasonable time, without breaking our necks to catch 'em. Just be glad we got back when we did." "It was fun. Now I can say I really had the grand tour," Lislita asserts, without the slighest hint of reservation. Langly, for a speedy second, removes his eyes from the road to shoot her an affectionate glance askance. Wishing oh, so very hard she wasn't leaving. The end of January was a long, iffy way off. Too much time for him to miss feeling her in his arms, and kissing her tender lips; her tender everything. Who knew if he'd even be able to get away then? If Y2K made everything go bust? Precautions, or no precautions. Seeing her again might not be possible for ages... Something is definitely in the air, Scully judges, as she eyes them both cagily, giving each other furtive peeks. She mandates herself not to declare it love...but, she wouldn't be surprised though, as she sighs, studying the back of her cousin's smallish head. Lislita was... Langly this, and Langly that, never grabbing a wink of sleep for her- self, as she kept going on and on about their event-filled day. He'd arrived with the van at about six-fifteen, because he'd promised he was driving her to the airport. How he'd managed to procure the vehicle to his lonesome, he hadn't said. "Trying real hard not to sound like a spoiled sport," Langly says, to add leverage, and gives Lislita a visual tweek, "but we sure as blazes could've done without being car-jacking victims." Playfully, she winks back at him. "That was a big time bummer." "Here, here," Scully tosses in with several more pats to Langly's arm just as he's pulling them up in front of the overly-frenetic United terminal. "I thought you were going to park..." "I got mixed-up and goofed," he says contritely, mentally whipping him- self for getting the two exits confused. "What can I say? Sorry. Look, I'll plant my goodbyes here. 'Bye." He reaches over to make a long-range grab for Lislita, but she shakes her head in denial. "What?" "I want you to come with me to the gate." "But there's just not enough time, Leese. Don't I get a big hug and kiss to tide me over til next time?" She pouts every bit as masterfully as Scully, who's reknowned Agency- wide, for hers. "No. I don't want to leave you like this. I want us to be together for the final, final goodbyes..." Deeply affected, but patently the pragmatist, he offers, "I know, babe, but, those should be for Dana--I mean Scully. She's family. She should go. C'mon now, Leese, you've gotta get yourself checked in and hustling to the gate, 'pronto.' You don't wanna miss your flight? Do ya? You've got fifteen minutes to get yourself aboard that plane. So I'll make with the hugs an' kisses here--" "No!" Lislita insists, looking as ornery as a mule sinking in quick- sand, not moving a muscle. "God!" Langly stares at her, incredulous she is being so stubborn. "Like, please?" These Scully babes, man--phew--he considers as another two minutes are lost to history. "Hey, I've got an idea," Scully intervenes between the soon to be separated couple, with a precipitous thorn between them. Never let it be said I was ever one to stand in the way of true love, or whatever, she reflects with a knowing look sewn in her face. Anyone with even twenty/forty vision can see they're really sold on each other. Remind yourself of anyone you know? Her subconscious prods. Let's *not* get started on THAT, she sternly chastises. It's a good thing...it's a good thing...just keep repeating that to yourself, Dana. Ah, well, if Langly's the who she wants. "Guys, how about this? I'll stay with the van." Langly switches around in his seat in a flash, preparing to re-open his mouth in protest. "It's okay, Langly. You go with Lis. Get her luggage squared away, then get her to the gate. *I'll* say my goodbyes here." "But, Scully..." "But nothing, Langly." "Oh, thank you, 'primita.'" Lislita flings herself at her cousin and hugs for all she's worth. Following her shower of kisses, she effuses, "I love you *so* much, Dana." "That goes double for me, Cuz." "Are you sure, Scully?" Langly fires at the fiercely hugging FBI agent. "Quite." "If you're carryin' your badge, you could flash it so they won't hassle ya about leaving the van unattended." Scully frowns at the very idea of his unfair suggestion, which clearly does not sit well. "Can't do that. I try to play by the rules as best I can. What if all FBI Agents flashed their badges around for un- official reasons? Who'd take us seriously when there's a real emergency?" "But Mulder says--" Scully grimaces. "Yeah, I know what Mulder says. He tells me often enough, when he thinks I'm being little Miss Rule Book. But now's not the time, nor place to get into Mulder's private fantasy world of procedural make believe. Get her bag, Blondie, and hop to. Okay?" "Like, I'm so gone..." The cousins exchange another brace of embraces glad to have shared what time they'd had together. "I'll call ya tonight, Lis." "Think about taking a cruise real soon, Dana. Talk with Langly. We've already made plans..." *That* brings a raise to her eyebrow. As Scully watches her winsome cousin link arms with the lanky man, saddled with unruly locks currently gallivanting in the breeze, who dutifully has the rollie in tow, she shrugs. Stranger than fiction, she nods, when the thought hits...I wonder if we Scullys could handle having a died-in-the-wool conspiracy theory-loving, not to mention authentically eccentric hacker in the family? *That* should bring a raise to 'Tia' Maggie's eyebrow as well. As the seconds of their walking away tick by, the captivation of the moment puts her in trance- like contemplation, wrestling with contradictions. Time will tell, she ponders, as a fleet-footed airport traffic manager, carrying a fire-red stop sign, pre-emptorily tells her to move along. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Gate Checkpoint 7:25 A.M. "Love you. Now--book! They're gonna leave without you, babe!" "No they won't--and I love you more! I'm calling you as soon as I'm in my apartment." "Cool. Now get goin', or I'll carry you on board myself." "I'd like that, 'muchisimo.' Very much!" "You are soooo wack. Gorgeous, in so many more ways than the obvious, but totally wack. God, I don't know how I'm gonna get through not seeing ya for so long." "Ma'am, I'll need to see your ticket, please." "Oh, 'si', sure. Here it is..." "Purse on the conveyor, and step through this way." The automatous- sounding employee directs. Suddenly Lislita's eyes are brimming tears. "Yo, none of those," Langly tells her, feeling some wet 'weirdness' going on behind his glasses, as well. "We'll be together again, real soon. I'll be in Miami two months from now, before you really get to miss me. That's a direct promise." "Please keep it moving, ma'am..." "I love you, Langly, 'mi amor'..." She looks back to him again, and runs the wrong way out of the metal detector, oblivious to other perspective passengers jockeying to get to their gates, to embrace him one last time. He has to peel her away. Not before he ultimately succeeds, he whispers into her shimmery hair, "Eyes only for you...lips only on yours. I gave you my email addy. When you're ship board, keep 'em, comin'. We'll be in touch everyday." "Go--git! LOVE YA!" Her arms wreathe his neck a final time. Reluctantly, she separates herself in stages, as he passes his thumb to and fro over the polka dot beauty mark hugging the right corner of her chin. In transfixion, he watches her streak down the wide terminal corridor, long auburn strands flying, her shoulder bag banging her every which way as she flies. Every few moments she turns back around, waving frantically. It's not until she reaches the gate proper, when she slows down. She throws him a kiss, whose motion threatened to throw her back out, and waves a final time. The ticket taker accepts her proof of purchase with a professional smile. A last look cast in his direction...and then...she's gone. Sighing, Langly removes his glasses to dry off the lenses. He mutters a blue word, and thinks...knew this would happen...I hate goodbyes that put me through the emotional wringer. After setting his specs back in place, he rubs his stubbly face, still staring at the last place she was, missing her by leaps and bounds. Already. End?...yeah, right *-*-*-*-*-*-*-* End Part 3 susanlittlejohn@netscape.net SusieXF@webtv.net