Disclaimer in Part 1 susieqla@yahoo.com Thrown Back 7/18 8:00 A.M. Langly anchored his arm around her waist, cinching her to him. "It's like the prick wants to be seen, sittin' there as big as life. I mean death." He wished he hadn't said that when he saw how she took it, and wanted to work wonders with masking tape and the wind tunnel that was his mouth. "Sorry..." "I've got to get out of here," she said through a dry gulp. "Now, hold on a minute," Frohike remonstrated, stepping into her, the best he could do was only imagine how she had to be feeling. Safe to assume not good, judging by the stark pallor her face had taken on. "I spied him, and everything got very clear to me," she replied in a tremulous, hollow voice. "I'm so sorry I'm endangering you and your efforts, adding to what you're already facing. It's better I leave, which will remove any *collateral* danger I pose." Langly turned whiter than she while his heart plummeted to rock bottom. Again, it was safe to bet the farm that she'd heard every discouraging word, including the rash crap he'd vomited. "NO!" he exclaimed in the most persuasive way he knew how. He bumped up his whine to the next level. "I was talkin' trash. You can't leave--I won't let ya." Frohike folded his arms across his chest, his heart undeniably moved by Langly's sincerity, and something else he'd never seen his friend of going on ten years exhibit...an unbridled willingness to surrender his pride. Byers looked out the window for the third time, wanting to memorize that cold, calculating face behind the 'bug's' steering wheel. "Okay, this is how it's gonna go down, people," Frohike barked, assuming irrevocable command. Once a Marine, always a Marine, he recalled Skinner reminding him awhile back. "Listen up, blond boy. It's time for splitsville. You and Margot; Byers and me. You're gonna use John's Cherokee. Mobility's the watchword. Keep on the move." He noticed Margot, and Langly, too for that matter, hanging on every word. In her eyes especially, there was a resilient look of quiet hope intermingled with raw courage. It didn't take an algorithm to see why his young friend was so taken with her. Her physical comliness only added butter fudge icing to the entire package. Frohike licked his lips. "Byers and I'll head for the complex as soon as you two are long gone. Make treads for there as soon as you're outta here. We downloaded the compound's schematic layout before coming here, talk about complex. C'mon, we gotta move on this. We'll pinpoint exactly where we'll rendezvous. This isn't a time for tooling around. We gotta hus--" "Think splitting up's the coolest thing to do?" Langly muttered, looking stunned all of a sudden. "Got a better 'tour de' stratagem, buddy?" Frohike stabbed. "No," Langly said submissively, sounding weary. Hunching his shoulders, he slouched. "Just don't think it's such a good option is all." "We stand a better chance if we split up. Right?" Frohike brought home, unashamed of the commando in him. "You gonna work with us here, or what?" "Yeah," Langly said, sounding sour. Margot took careful note of the way the Gunmen were striving not to lose it, as they continued to squabble. Striving, but Frohike and Langly seemed as though they would be pushing and shoving each other soon. Feeling uncomfortably out of place, and not making a fuss about it either, she unmoored herself from Langly's side, deciding to be political about the situation...the good of the many overriding the good for just one. She went for her jacket, which lay against the side of the couch closest to the fish tank, first. Uttering toneless words, she wished the aquatic denizens well, and at the last minute, re-analyzed her immediate course of action. How could she reclaim her notebook and backpack without the Gunmen noticing? Good one. Not wasting any more time, she just went for her things, tucking the laptop into the JanSport, while the engrossed men haggled on in total distraction. It hadn't been as hard as she thought it would be. She slipped into her outerwear while they continued wrangling. With the Jansport securely in place, she beaded a noiseless path for the apartment door... Frohike, looking satisfied and outspoken, upended the noisy free-for-all. "Okay then, we--" "Margot--NO!" Langly blared, looking wounded, and hot-footed it over to her just as she had the door open. He lodged his hand against it. "Where the hell do you think you're goin'?" "I'm leaving," she said meekly. "The hell you are--dammit--NO!" Langly spluttered. "You're not--not--without ME. GOT THAT?" "I'll do the duck and dive on me own if you don't mind. I'll be all right. Really." But she couldn't look him in the eyes all the same. "I *do* mind." "Please, love, it's better this way." "No it ain't--forget it!" He hurled the words like live grenades. "We're in this together. You leave with me, or else you leave over my dead body!" Ignoring her hand on the doorknob, he slammed Number 42, rattling the jamb, not caring less what Mulder's nosy neighbors might think. "Oh, dear..." Looking concerned for another reason then, he susserated, "I-I'm sorry. I'm wired." "I'm sorry I'm so much trouble," she said softly, sounding cowed, but grateful. "You win." "Nah-ah. We both do." Deeply affected, she moved closer to him, sensing a different sort of bond between them now. One she hadn't figured on. One she wasn't used to before Gustin, and in his aftermath, wasn't sure she could handle ever again. Why should he care, she thought, finally able to look Langly in his lucid eyes. "Everybody," Byers said in alarm, having inched over to the window, "he's getting out of the car. Margot, Langly, I suggest you get while the getting's good. Margot, going it alone isn't an option, judging by the feral quality in my firend's eyes." "Heard that," Langly said, and squandered no more time reopening the door. Byers threw his car key, along with a varied assortment of others, to him, and Langly tossed him the van's on a key chain with a little skull-and-crossbones. Kneading Margot out the doorway, he said full of wily, "Lucky thing you parked around back, John-boy." "Get going," Frohike splintered. "Wait--" Byers ordered sharply. He rushed up to them, handing off Langly's warm-up jacket. "WATCH yourselves." Swept up in the tension of the moment, he enmeshed himself in-between their bodies and tightly pressed his into theirs. "Be safe." "Yeah, man, it'll be cool," Langly assured, but he rammed his index and middle fingers beneath his glasses' frame, and swabbed. "Uh, sorry 'bout calling you a narc, before. And reamin' ya about Susanne." "I forgot you did; the way I usually do, Ringo." "So, like where're we gonna meet up again? It sorta slips my mind," the contrite man directed at Frohike, as though it was an afterthought, then promised Byers, "I'll be wizard with your ride, man, so don't bagbite after we split." "Be careful with *yourselves*. Don't worry about the four-by-four," Byers mandated, thinking it was good he'd had the late model tuned up recently, but hated it when Langly glanced over his feelings. "The watershed's off the main road leading to the site. Check out its exact location on the road atlas, it's circled in red. The atlas is in the glove compartment. See you there at midnight," Byers said. "Yeah, midnight, 'cos that's where we'll look for ya. I mean this, dude, watch your back," Frohike stipulated after gripping first one of Langly's shoulders, then the other. He avoided thinking about the loss of his over-the-long-haul friend who was more like a son. Truth be told, he loved Langly like a son, the one he'd lost in that boating accident while at camp, over eleven years ago. But it'd be a cold day in equatorial South America before he'd ever say so. Langly shared similar feelings about Frohike, and, just as similarly, voicing them ran along the same lines too. "Yeah, yeah. I will," Langly promised. "I mean it, Hippie boy." Frohike gave the 'kid' a little punch on the chin. "Don't do a 'Scully' on us." "Don't plan on winding up at the South Pole with a big-ass tube sticking outta me, bein' used for my gestational abilities." "What in the world are you talking about?" Margot gave him a shocked statement. "Later," he said, wanting to see if she'd recognize how she'd sounded before. "We'll watch each other's bacon," she pledged, and gave the brave men they were leaving behind firm hugs and kisses of appreciation upon their cheeks, euro style, for the lengths they were willing to go to for her sake. "I'm forever in your debt," she said emotively. Then they took off after they had shooed them off. Running for the stairwell, with Langly dogging her heels, Margot reported, "I say...Frohike is the affectionate." He had squeezed her buttocks several times before letting her go. Langly grunted something tart which he didn't want her to hear in so many words. "I saw what he did." Bounding down the stairs, Margot said, "He's sweet, Ringo..." He grabbed her by the elbow as she almost lost her balance on the second to the last step. "So are my favorite cookies. Mallomars. But after three boxes even I get sick." ||oo|| 8:10 A.M. With the door shut, Frohike and Byers barrelled back to the front window as a team. Byers tugged on his beard, absorbed in streamed thought. Sounding worried he said, "He's just standing by the car." He willed that the nemesis of ambiguous biological makeup remained there long enough to buy the stalked young researcher and their gangly bosom buddy more time. "Looks like he's sensing which way the wind's blowing." "Margot's vitals, I'd be willing to bet," Byers articulated somberly, wishing he knew the secret of how the entity did it. "I dunno, maybe Langly was right. Maybe we *should've* stuck together," Frohike vacillated. Clamping his hand down on his shoulder, Byers reaffirmed, "No, Frohike, it was a good decision--" "Not if it gets 'em killed, it ain't." he adjured, shaking his head and looking regretful. "C'mon, the options were limited. Your way, it increases our odds. Otherwise, all our months of toil, wasted, if he takes us all out." "There's gotta be a way to kill that, that thing..." "According to what we found, thus far, there hasn't been a way invented. He's virtually indestructible." Byers turned away from the veiled view to Frohike who still looked nonplussed. "They'll be fine, Mel. Despite his interpersonal shortcomings, Ringo's a klieg of a bright bulb. Just don't tell him you heard it from me. We wouldn't want that swelled head getting any puffier." "Yeah, we sure don't want that." Byers nodded. "He's got some of the keenest instincts for survival I've ever seen in anyone, excluding present company, that is. Your war record speaks volumes." "Surviving the headcase you whimsically refer to as dear ol' dad speaks yours," Frohike attested, and rewarded the overachiever with a glancing swipe off his upper arm. "You're still too wound around what he thinks of you, ya know." Byers dug his fingers into his beard. "I know. He took great pains in caring, which I think is why I'm such a disappointment to him now. He thinks I can do something better with my life." Switching gears slightly, he continued, "You're the closest to a true father Langly's ever had. He's come to respect, trust. I'd even go as far to say...love." Byers fished into his back pocket, but decided to leave his wallet where it was. He'd look at his father's picture when things weren't so awry. "Kid's got moxie. Not everyone tears loose from heroin addiction and lives to tell." Frohike shifted his eyes back to Max who was still poised at the 'bug's' left fender. "But against *that* spit on a stick?" Again, he glowered at Max. Byers looked again too. "C'mon. We've got higher ground to cover between now and midnight. We'd better take off too." "Oh, hell! The son of an EBE's on the move. He's headin' for the back." Frohike raked the sides of his head with his half-exposed fingers. "Those two better be long gone. Damn I wish I had a remote to work on him. Aim, zap--shut him down in less time it takes to crap if he even can." Byers opened his mouth in agitation a few times, but said nothing. He was about to pull Frohike away from the window, but Mulder's phone's insistent twinging interrupted. Frohike scrambled to pick it up from its scuffed mooring on the coffee table. "Yeah?" (Pause...) "That's cool, buddy." Frohike threw Byers a tepid smile. "None too soon. Don't sweat something like that now. This line's secure. Mulder tightened up his act. Remember? With our help." He resumed keeping tabs on Max' stilted movements. The stealthy figure had just halted his advance on Mulder's building. He stood motionless several minutes as though in deep contemplation, until. "He's loading back into the bug," Frohike croaked. "Thundering herd, man--don't stop till we meet up." (Pause...) "Bad, bad idea-- just keep--dammit, Langly, listen for once. Dedicate to the script you--you." He was having none of Langly's stubbornness, but just as he was about to shout him down, Langly changed his tune. "Okay. That's credible, get behind it, and stay that way. Yeah, I got the number she just rattled off to ya. Catch ya there. Later, man, work it beyond Z-depth." There'd better be a later, he thought, ending the call, and refused to think beyond a worst case outcome of any description. Then to Byers, after he'd pedestaled the phone, he said, "She's got a mobile. He said they're headin' for the Jeff Davis on Columbia Pike." Byers watched Max roar away, a strange thought playing devil's advocate then. "If only there was some way to track him within a given radius. Frohike threaded the needle as he hefted the sizeable comportment case for their equipment as they readied to leave. "Yeah, that'd help. Too bad there's no time to cook one up. Whipping something up like that would take time." ||oo|| The Lone Gunmen's Headquarters 10:10 A.M. If the traffic hadn't been a nightmare, they would have been here a lot sooner. It had been the worst ever, nearly driving Langly's patience over the edge. What felt like forever had finally ended, and they were where they needed to be...well, where *he* thought they needed to be, at any rate. "Jackercrack anime you've got there, those two belugas wavin' their flukes at each other, then at whoever's eyes are on the screen." He wasn't just paying a compliment. The visual was one of the most imaginative he'd ever seen. He sort of envied her having a laptop he wished he owned. Langly stole another look over at Margot, who was sitting beside him, but every moment or so had watchful eyes travel to the videocam surveillence screens. He eyed them too, and told himself to hurry up with what he was doing. "Al-almost done?" He glanced away from the large monitors. "Uh huh, just wanna make sure your powertrain can handle the extra 'upage.'" "Good." Margot got up and started pacing. "Relax. I know. Easier to say than do, but once this tool's in place, we'll have a handle, and we'll both rest easier." He kept on with the roll and press with the one built-in mouse, and then synchronized his movements using the other one. "So there's a good chance your module will work?" "Better than a good chance. I used to do this kind of stuff all the time back on the farm. Tinker with ideas until they were reality. Only now, the lapse time between brainstorm and implementation into the real world is virtually nil." Warily, she surveyed his cluttered working environment, with the strewn, scattered electronic remains of di-cast cast offs of things taken apart, but never put together again, diversely spread among the shells of hardware and devices that had been neglected for what looked to be an indeterminable length of time. She couldn't help but think about Frohike's biting, cautionary words advising them to keep on the move, having heard them barked clearly as they'd skirted by the Potomac and then had doubled back. "So, not too much longer?" she said, as calmly as a gentle trade wind wafting along, but with enough impetus to be felt. "Shouldn't be. Scudding the sensoring sequencings in place. The commands are jivin' even as we speak. Once this part's done, all I'll have to do is some final reconfiguring, and than 'voila.' We're in serious, continuous tracking mode. Ability over roughly a seven-mile radius. Five minutes more, tops." Her eyes flitted over to the screens again, and this time he caught her agitated statement. "You pissed with me?" "Why do you ask? Do I looked 'pissed?'" Langly hesitated, half sorry he'd said anything. "Uh, well, like...kinda." Margot drifted back over to his workspace. She picked up what looked like a putty fist with a gaggle of wires sticking out from the side closest to her. "One of the banes of my existence, not having a poker face." Not a poker face, a sweet one though, Langly noted silently, and halted his calculations for a moment. "Don't think I don't care that you're buggin' 'cos we came back here. I understand. I really do." She relaxed her hand on his shoulder. "I just don't like our being here. I've got this freaky feeling something bad's about to happen." "You psychic?" "I wouldn't call it psychic, exactly, rather it's a heightened sense of foreboding." "In other words, huh?" Langly pursed his lips, and, straining the reprisal out of his tone said, "We're not stayin' a minute longer than we have to. Word up." Leaning way back in his badly-creaking chair, he acknowledged, "Your ex wins in the widest-bandwidth range, no contest, but we'll have some range on him now too. Know where *he* is in relation to ourselves. I'm not down with sneak-ups. I'm counting on his having some form of residual electromeg. throw-off. If we're about to get worked, I sure as hell wanna know, even if it's nanos' before it goes down." "I hope you're right." "Yeah, me too, but I'm banking there's a fair to even chance power vectors run high with him." Her notebook bleeped, then made a sound reminiscent of a xylophone being struck. A glitch was in the making. Swearing, Langly sequenced the, 'ctrl, alt, F3, F9 and F12 keys, and breathed a sigh of relief, catching the impending snafu in time. "Almost blew it." After he'd finished keying like a maniac, he turned his attention back to her. "With determination like that, I don't think it's all that probable." She laid the curious object down next to her laptop, and sat down beside him again. "You gonna be all right?" She nodded, and tried looking more relaxed, but there was no shame admitting what she felt. Ashamed of feeling one of the oldest emotions known to humankind? One never a respecter of rank, political affiliation, gender. Or agenda, the deepest beliefs. As her dear philosophical uncle 'Pert loved to say, 'There is none so cowardly as one who decries fear.' "I'm frightened." "Real understandable," Langly rejoined, as he divided his attention with the last detail of the download. "Not just for myself, but for you as well, and your friends. You're risking everything for, well not just for me, for the good of the public, but the point being, me, a someone you barely know--" "You didn't act that way back at Mulder's," Langly reminded her, sounding on the more forward side of shy. Margot was blushing deeper than he had when they'd been in bed together and she'd started coming on to him. She touched his arm and Langly dropped his eyes to it, feeling himself start to warm. "I know, and, and well... I wasn't myself. I mean I was myself, but I shouldn't have tried forcing myself on you as I did. Can you forgive me?" Can I forgive *her*? I'm the one....I'm the world class loser. She wants me? Why? "I..." Langly cleared his throat and dared himself to look into eyes that were all mellow. "I like, didn't mind. Uh...I acted the way I did 'cos I don't know how to act with women. I ain't ex-" He scratched the side of his nose with the side of his thumb. "Experienced." Round '2' for being inexorably lame, he arched. She wants *me*? "I don't handle my feelings too cool. I try dealing, it always gets messy," he confessed, squirming in his jeans which felt two sizes too tight all of a sudden. "Does it explain why you tend to jump a bit when *I* touch *you*? Not every time, mind, you, but...it bothers you. As though it causes you physical pain when you're touched, as someone might who suffers from dysesthesia." Langly nodded, looking stricken. "Only it's not that...it's that...I got a lotta issues." Margot stopped holding his hand, but held onto her smile. "Issues or no, you attracted me almost immediately." "I, I did?" His half-moon of a smile seemed ill-timed. "You do." Following a rib-tickling laugh, she said, "You needn't look so shocked. You're ever so attractive." Giving into her impulsive nature again, she touched his cheek to coax that fragile smile along. "Maybe you'll think me daft my telling you this in one gush, as it were, but you're all I've ever dreamed finding in one man. Intelligence, a vivid sense of humor, a quirky personality with merit uniquely its own...a face I want to take between these two hands and kiss your features off of..." She winked saucily to end, "and a bum to die for." "No kiddin'..." Langly bit the corner of his lower lip. "Well I'll be damned," he said like a hopeless guy forever destined to lack clues or cues to offset how adrift she was making him feel. "Oh, I certainly hope not." He tried for re-absorption in the download, but she was having none of his evasive tactics. "You're the first man who doesn't feel he must intimidate first, then dominate me so I'll want him. I adore that, it's what's most attractive about you." She removed one of his hands from her keyboard, and this time he didn't twitch a muscle. "You're therapeutic for me. My latency for domination rearing its butting head, I cared little about your feelings at your friend's apartment. That's what I'm apologizing for, love. Dominating someone else for a change. It's a bit intoxicating." "So I've heard..." "Sorry I took advantage, Ringo," Margot said with a belabored sigh. "You've been far too nice to me." She owned his undivided attention. "Is that what I've been?" Turning away from the laptop's screen, he said gently, "See, I bet that's the kind of stinkin' thinkin' that's been gettin' you knocked around." "I suppose i'tis." "You should be treated nice. Why the hell not? You can't let Neanderthals beat ya up so they'll wanna be nice to you. There's so much contradiction in that. Take it from a former whipping boy and punching bag who's got old scars to prove it." Their gazes held. "You make so much sense, love. I'm an emotional cripple, a basketcase." "Is there room in that 'basket?'" Margot nodded submissively. "Then we're two of a kind, I'd say." His eyes began slipping off her face. "Maybe like..." "Yes?" "Well, ya know, when this is all over..." When he cleared his throat it had a distinct choking sound. "I should ask you again?" she finished for him as delicately as the subject warranted. "More considerately." "It wasn't like I didn't wanna. I did--I do." His face was so hot her fingers could get burned, but they kept fondling his cheek. He vaulted over the lump that had risen in his throat. "I... I...see, I want love too. Not just sex--not that sex is a bad thing." When Margot smiled there were a lot of teeth involved. "I, I ain't some guy who's gotta have it, screw true feelings..." Langly ended his verbal skittishness. "It's just that I crave love too." Unwittingly though, he thought again, man, I so suck at this, and felt dismal. "Trusting's hard for me--that is, I don't trust easily. I mean." "I do, and sadly, I've paid a high price, over and over." Hanging her head, she said, "I've gone about relationships all wrong far too long a time." "Hey, there's room in that boat, 'cept, I've never been in a real relationship with a woman. Maybe 'cos I'm afraid I'm like my murdering father." The fingers of his right hand pressed themselves into the soft plane of the back of hers. "Children of abusers become abusers, so they say." "I don't believe you could ever be anything like your father, Ringo. True, I don't know you well, but I just know you could never be the way he was with anyone." "Th-then, maybe you could g-give me a try?" he broached, sounding the epitome of tentative. "I'd like that," Margot said in one pleasant breath which ignited his smile to its full potential. She inched into his face, intent on making direct contact, labially speaking. "I, I don't have much practice with this, either," he defended, "s-so I'll probably suck." "You do go on so..." Her button nose nuzzled the tip of his prominent one. "Sucking's good, when done right. Like this..." Langly thought he'd faint within the next two minutes. Their lips melded a second time, as naturally as the breath they'd just shared. It was strictly a 'no-brainer,' the way she got him going. After easing away from each other, she said, sweeping her forefinger and middle fingers over his lips, "Nothing wrong with any of that, lambkins. You're magic. Good things come to those who relate." The second kiss lasted longer, with neither wanting it to end any time soon. ||oo|| End Part 7