Title:      Work With Me Here (1/3)
Author:     Sue
            susieqla@yahoo.com
Category:   LGMFIC
Rating:     PG
Note:       Continuation of 'The Date'
Distribution: Wherever, whenever, it's fine.
Disclaimer:   C.C., 1013 Productions, FOX
know what they own; Lislita comes from me.



Work With Me Here
Part 1


Scully's Apartment
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
November 20, 1999

7:05 A.M.


"See you then, Langly.  Uh huh. . .why?
Completely sure.  Of course I want to spend
the *whole* day with you.  No, I haven't
changed my mind.  Positive.  Stop.  I know
what I want.  Surprise me, then.  'Bye..."

Lislita ends the call, thinks over most of
what he said, and then rises from the
high perched, wide-seated stool.  In her
cousin's downy, fleece-lined slippers, she
pads her way to the immaculate refrigerator.
Yawning, she opens its door, craving some
cold oj, and wondering what kind of day it
would be.  The weather, even at this early
hour, holds out the promise of being one
of D.C.'s ten best.

The kitchen still holds the delightful
smell of strawberry shortcake, a holdover
from Scully's and hers adventures in baking
from scratch, two nights ago.  They'd made
piglets of themselves and only a smidgen
of the pastry remains in the fridge.

She thinks she's being as quiet as a mouse
as she opens the refrigerator door.  She
is, but she forgets that her relative is
a crack F.B.I. agent, with hearing bordering
on canine range.  She has the half-filled
carton of Minute Maid half-way to her mouth,
already tasting citrus.

"Don't even think about it, 'prima.'  You're
busted big time."  Scully is leaning against
the adjoining wall with her arms folded,
perpetrating a glare which she bounces off
Lislita.

"Oops, so I am."  The aprehendee begins
lowering the carton, looking sheepish,
but a faint smile trails on her face.
"A bad habit, but one I get away with at
home.  Rosa's been indulging me since
my childhood."

The softly-blurred image of the sedate
Mexican household's earthy family cook
forms in Scully's mind, and she remembers
how anxious the hugable woman had been
about practicing her English on her.
Scully prinks her face with a warm smile
as it eases its way onto her face.  "Use a
glass?  Please?"  Lislita nods and heads
for the sink.  "How's Rosa?"  Scully
watches her vivacious cousin comply with
her minimal request.

"She's fine.  She's a grandmother of
six now."

"That's great."  Scully yawns with a
limbering stretch.  "Been up long?"

"Since about six-thirty."  Lislita sips
from a long-stemmed glass as though she's
sipping champagne.  "It was hard staying
asleep any longer.  I'm so excited.  I
can't wait to see him again."

"So I heard," Scully says, thinking that
this is sounding like the start of some-
thing weird, as she catches the twinkle in
her cousin's deep brown eyes.  "Langly,
right?"

"'Ricardo, si.'"  With a dramatic slant of
her knowing eyes, the cousin says, "Okay,
how much did you hear?"  Same, old Dana,
she thinks, always listening in on private
conversations through any means at her
disposal.

A dubious shading beclouds the federal
career woman's tone, the quality, all
high and flighty, on the cusp of being
critical.  "Enough to know you, 'can't
wait to see him again.'"  

"Why are you sounding like that?"

She knows her reservations are plain on
her face, but helping that isn't her chief
concern right now.  "I'm not trying to
sound like anything, Lisi.  I'm just
curious, that's all."  What could a
sophisticated beauty such as she see in
Mulder's quirky, dorky friend?  The
immature paranoiac beset by varying degrees
of monomania on a daily basis?

Lislita's face lights up.  "He's amazing. . .
so brave, and fearless."  Scully does a
mental double take.  Langly. . .the geek
who's afraid of his own wraith-like shadow
if ever he hears an unfamiliar sound in the
dim recesses of the warehouse?  Lislita's
mind drifts to the scary incident at the
little sundry store, where she'd accompanied
Langly to get some antacid, and subsequently
where at knifepoint, if it hadn't been for
his heroic intervention, she would have been
spirited off to a location where rape, and
God knew what else would have surely
followed.  "He wants to show me the D.C. he
knows.  The places he likes."

"Oh, *that* should be interesting," Scully
judges, suppressing the urge to ask her
cousin if she likes dives where the menu
is exclusivly cheesestakes.  That, and
spending the bulk of her day in Radio Shack
watching Langly gawk over hand-held gadgets
of all arcane descriptions.

Lislita finishes the last of her orange
juice in one gulp.  She dabs at the citric
moisture at the corners of her mouth with a
few haphazard fingertip swipes.  "I think
so.  He'll be here by eight."  There's that
look again.  "Somehow I get the feeling
you're something much less than happy, Dana."
Lislita sets the empty glass upon the bone
Rubbermaid skid in the sink, and while
turning away from the running water says,
"You don't want me going, is that it?"

"Don't mind me."

"Oh, sure."  Finishing up by shutting off
the faucet, the cousin goes back to the
stool to sit.  Her long, slender legs the
color of deliciously-toasted toast, dangle.
"What is up?"

Scully travels over to the fridge to get a
spot of juice for herself, wondering how
she's going to put what she's spoiling to
say as non-argumentative as conceivably
possible.  She uses the same glass her
cousin's just rinsed and dried.

"Well. . ."  Ah, this might work better,
than coming right out and saying how
wrong she thinks it would be for her
cousin to get mixed up with the nerdiest
and weirdest of the Three Stooges.  "It's
just that, since it's Saturday, and I'm
off, I thought we could do something
together--finally.  Sunday, and you'll be
heading back to Miami.  Where did the time
go, huh?"

"This is true.  Two weeks have never gone
so fast."  It's Lislita's turn to sigh.
"We haven't been able to do much together.
At least not as much as I would've liked."

"Same here.  Your first week here I was up
to my eyeballs in autopsies."

Lislita's twittery laughter flutters
across to Scully.  "'Ay,' I wish I had
more time to visit, but there're the
cruise shows I'm booked for.  Next week,
and--boom."  She'd used her hands to mimic
an explosion.  "The Caribbean season kicks
into high gear, and runs for the next
several months.  I'm booked solid."

"Well, Mulder did offer to cover for me
so I could take off to be with you, but I
didn't think it was fair, doing that, and
there were all the follow-ups to those
crazy autopsies."

The spark of an idea lights up Lislita's
expressive face.  "I know.  Take a cruise
on my line.  Make it a vacation.  I can
get you a discount for family."

Sloshing down another swallow of oj,
Scully wipes her mouth off with the
kitchen towel, shaking her head afterwards.
"Mulder and I are in the middle of this,
well I'll say, unusual case at the moment,
so any thought of a vacation has to be put
on hold for the time being."

"Come along with us, today; 'Ricardo' and
me, then.  We'll have fun, the three of
us.  No--even better--invite Mulder too.
It'll be great.  No?"

Scully swishes her hand into her mussed
hair, imagining what that mixed company
would be like.  "No, that's all right."
Her grimace is great.  "Trust my strong
feeling that Mulder's and my tagging along
wouldn't sit too well with Langly, your
date."  Thoughtfully, "I mean, you're going
on a date with him, right?"

Lislita looks quizzical for a moment, and
then sums up, "I'm the one who asked him
out, so whatever he thinks is fine with
me.  He's very. . ."

"--Not the usual sort of man you date?"
Scully rushes to fill in before tendering
a finer, more delicate turn of phrase.
Quickly she counters, "You two certainly
hit it off last night."  They sure didn't
hide the fact that something had changed
between them after coming back from the
convenience store, Scully rethinks.  Her
deductive use of reasoning effortlessly
clicking into place.  (Their hot little
hands, well, in Langly's case, his very
large ones, were all over each other
during the ride home.)

The lithe relation chuckles in fondness,
remembering how all through their phone
conversation of a short while ago, Langly
had kept saying that if she wanted to
change her mind about going out with him,
it was 'cool.'

'...Wouldn't be like the first time a
chick had second thoughts,' he'd told her...

"I like him.  I think he's sweet," Lislita
insists.  "'Tan padrisimo.'"

(That means she definitely sees something
in him that I've missed all these years.)
"But he's not your usual type, though,"
Scully waggles, unwilling to have that bone
shaken loose.

Lislita hops off the stool.  "Interesting,
attractive men are *always* my type."

"Langly?" Scully intones like wind wending
through a dark, cavernous cave, and looking
as incongruous as a duck in a tux, wearing
a top hat and spats.

Lislita whirls around with a dervishness to
the movement, a time or two.  When she
laughs, the kitchen vibrates, in step with
the lilt in her walk as she heads for the
bedroom she's sharing with Scully, and it
wouldn't surprise the Agent if her cousin
has it in her to throw a handspring.  "I'll
shower quick, and get dressed.  Please
say you'll come.  I'm sure he won't mind,
Danita.  He being the gentleman he is."

(Oh, I strongly doubt he wouldn't mind.)

"Langly?" Scully echoes, as incredulously
as before.  She upbraids herself for the
hooting that brazenly couched itself in
her tone.  Lislita stops in her tracks
and does an about-face.

"You don't. . .you don't think much of him,
do you?"

Scully puckers her mouth after the last
essense of juice clears her palate.
"Uh. . ."

"*Why* don't you?"

Scully shrugs, her mind crimps for a
moment, as a fuzzy memory rises, then
falls.  (Cutie?)

"I don't *dislike* him," she stalls, "it's
just that he's. . .well. . .he's just not
the type I picture you with."  Scully wraps
her robe around her taut frame.  "I don't
picture you with a geek."

Lislita wrinkles her brow.  "Geek?  'Que?'
What means geek?"

"Langly's a geek, Lisi," Scully says point-
bluntly, blurting the first thought that
had deluged her mind.  "All upper case."
That wistful sigh again, the one Mulder
knows well.  "Even *he* knows it."

"You make it sound very bad.  Something I
think 'Tia' Maggie wouldn't like hearing
you call somebody.  Especially somebody
thoughtful and nice."

Still sounding as though her cousin has
to be referring to somebody else, she
replies, "Geek's not a bad word.  It's
used to describe, usually guys, like Langly
who are, who."  She sees that the foundation
of her disparaging explanation isn't scoring
any points with her scowling cousin.  "Okay,
for simplicity's and impartiality's sakes,
guys who are socially-challanged.

"They're not exactly the kind of guys who
make a good impression.  Case in point--
Langly.  Misfits.  Hey--I'm not saying it's
through any fault of their own, generally.
It's just the way it is.  C'mon, at least
admit that you go out with drop dead good-
looking men, Cuz, in your show-biz universe.
Not, well, not.  Look, excuse my rude, but
not men who're mercy dated, or never have
been.  But, men you *have* dated like, well
you've said so yourself. . .Luis Miguel,
or that other hunky torch singer, uh. . .
Alejandro Fernandez, and a fair assortment
of actors and male models.  Not like,
like--"

"Like 'Ricardo?'  *Langly*?  Is that the
name you're groping for?" Lislita grumbles.

"I'm sorry, Lisi, but I--"

"So you're saying I shouldn't go out with
Langly because he's not good-looking
enough?"

"No--no, I'm not saying that at all."

"Then, what *are* you saying?"

Scully drops the volume and power of her
voice.  "I just want you to have a really
enjoyable last day here."

This visit isn't going to end on a sour note
if she can help it.  (HELP IT!)

"I'm sure I will.  He's so funny."

(More like funny looking.)

Dana relents, seeing how her cousin has
her heart set on a Langly she has never
reckoned as anything remotely 'appealing,'
before.  At least while having her mind
sound and intact.

The shadow boxing of wills ends because
Scully decides it should.  "Then, I guess
you will, hon.  Word of advice though. . .
don't let him steer conversation solely
to his pet conspiracy theories, or
indecipherable technobabble.  Trust me on
this, sweetie.  He'll give you a headache;
I know of what I speak."

"Yes, Mom. . ."  And she smiles anyway when
remembering how smart he is. . .and how
'cool.'  His term.

Following some very descriptive eye-rolling,
Scully mutters more to herself, "I still
owe him one good ass-kicking.  He plays with
her head, he'll really get it."  She rinses
the glass in imitation of her cousin.  "Oh,
and you've got an early flight tomorrow, so
don't stay out all hours."

"Yes, Mother," Lislita teases, and flashes
Scully her dazzling pearly whites.  "I'd
better not miss my flight if I want to
eat this winter."  She performs a polite
curtsey, and resumes her trip to the bedroom.

(Ahab salutes you. . .contrition complete.)


Lone Gunmen's Headquarters
Takoma Park, Maryland
7:37 A.M.


"GOD!"

"Grow up, Langly."

Several more caustic words fly out of the
bouncing and flouncing blond's mouth, adding
icing to the cake of his vespiary temper.
"Gimme one good reason why I can't use the
van, dammit--I need it total big time!"  If
his buds thought they'd heard him whine
in the past, their ears were about to be
treated to the mother of all 'whinefests'
of all time, inflicted upon them.

"Stop acting your shoe size," Frohike
snipes sharply again, "and give it a rest
already."  He goes on reading his paper.

Langly strafes Frohike's back with lethal
eyes.  "Look, this is how it works.  No
van, no chick.  No chick--I go ballistic!"
In frustration, he rakes his 'stragglies'
until his scalp hurts.  "Ouch!"

Frohike pours himself another freshly brewed
cup of Mr. Coffee's finest, and doesn't
bother to look Langly in the face when he
replies.  "Get a grip, man.  First things
first.  Ya TCB.  That comes first.  Then
ya get to party."

"Yeah, Langly."  Byers pushes more scrambled
eggs, that are liberally peppered with
flecks of green peppers and onions, onto his
fork with the remainder of burnt toast.
"*We* need the van more, and since you see
fit to shirk your civic responsibilities,
majority rules, as always.  Our prime
obligation is to our readers."

Langly sees red, and storms over to stand
at Byers' side, toying with the idea of
slapping the fork out of his hand.  Maybe
a more novel approach dipped in subtlety
might do the trick.  "C'mon, guys. . .when
do I ever ask for special favors?"  He
grinds the heel of his hand into his multi-
creased forehead.

Byers and Frohike exchange very jaded
expressions.

"The source is time-sensitive, so *we* need
the van," Frohike reminds him.  "That takes
priority over your little tryst you're hell-
bent to keep with Scully's hot cousin."  He
and Byers nod in semi-unison, and both
relishing the mask of desperation awash on
Langly's screwed-up face.  "You never care
about repercussions."

"What repercussions?" Langly barks.

"I think I know what Frohike's driving at,"
Byers supplies as he takes another sip of
cranberry juice.

"Enlighten *me*," Langly demands.

Frohike's sniffs seem to hang in the air.
He folds his newspaper, and focuses on
Langly intently.  "You could mess things up
for us, hippie.  You upset Scully's cousin
with the versatile ways you have of being a
real punk-ass, and there goes our F.B.I.
connection."

"And two of the nicest people we know,"
Byers finishes.

Then more to himself, although Frohike is
looking Byers' way, he says, "Man, I still
don't get it.  Exquisite Lislita wanting
to make the couple scene with homely-Jones
here.  Maybe she needs glasses too.  It's
like I keep sayin', there *is no* justice."

"Rant on, Frohike.  You just can't take it
'cos for *once* a chick--a real looker--gave
me the time of day.  *Ha*.  I can't help it
if she digs me."  Sounding churlish then,
he says, "You and Byers are gonna haveta
walk to the meet."  (I'm gettin' the van.
Case closed.)  "Where're the keys, narc, you
had 'em last."

"Sorry, Langly," Byers upholds, and gets
some visual encouragement from Frohike
who's shaking his head.

"No way, buddy," he says.  "You made your
plans, you plan on how you're gonna get
there without the van."

"Please, guys?  How often do I get lucky?"
pleads Langly, saving his more energetic
whimpers as his final ploy, and looking the
worse side of desperate.

"That settles it," Frohike says, clearly
showing signs of giving Langly a good clip
upside his head.  "No way you're getting
the van now.  You try hustlin' her onto the
fast track like some sex-starved freak. . ."
Which you are, Frohike thinks to himself.
"And you can kiss the more shapely of the
Fibbies good-bye."

"But--"

"Here's an idea, Romeo," Byers adds to the
mix, and with a smug laugh ends by saying,
"Take a cold shower. . .make it a very cold
one."

The look Langly gives him suggests that it
could happen if Byers joins him, where
Langly'd wind up holding his head beneath
the spray until Byers turned blue.



Scully's Apartment
9:15 A.M.


The thinness of his voice is stained with
thick apology.  "Like, sorry I'm late.  It
took me awhile getting over here. . ."
Just barely managing to look the women in
their eyes, he stands at the door, shifting
uncomfortably from foot to foot.  "No ride.
*They* took it.  I bussed my way over here."
His shoulders bunch for the shrug, and he
hunches over, one loose definition of being
contrite.

He'd wasted more time arguing with the
stonewallers he calls his friends, but to
no avail.  Then, his fruitless attempt at
hot-wiring had proven to be just that in
spades.

Scully strikes her patented arms folded
over chest pose, and regards him with
impassive, appraising eyes.  So typical of
him, she can't help thinking.

Lislita beams him the most radiant smile
he's ever seen a kept-waiting woman ever
give in his life.  She extends her hand,
inviting him inside Scully's.  "That's all
right.  You gave Dana and me another chance
to catch up.  We were just laughing about
things that happened when we were girls."

"*Were* girls?"  Langly draws a blank.
"Then what are you now?"

"When we were *little* girls," his gracious
prespective date underscores, and Scully
rolls her eyes, tucking her uncombed hair
behind her ears.  Suddenly, the bathrobe
she's still wearing makes her feel under-
dressed.

"Oh, yeah. . .little girls.  Cool."

Memories rehashed had been interspersed
with Scully's persistent highlighting of
a host of other good reasons why her cousin
should reconsider taking in Capitol sights
with Langly.  Oddities peculiar to him,
which Scully views more than just passingly
irritating.

"You know when you're little, you think you
know everything," Lislita cheerfully says.

"We *did*," Scully qualifies.

"Like you don't know everything now,
Scully?"  Langly retorts without thinking,
but when he catches sight of Scully's
spikey expression, he wishes he'd kept a
better lid on his mouth.

Quickly overhauling the subject, Lislita
says, "Dana was beginning to think you'd
changed your mind about going out, but I
said you'd come, or else you'd have called,
if you'd changed your mind.  I'm glad you
didn't change your mind."  She squeezes
his upper arm which she had latched unto
possessively, and Langly finds himself
relaxing in proportion to the mystique of
well-being she engenders within him.

(Knew she'd be way cool.  She's amazing. . .
you worried for nothin', man.)

When Lislita's hand fits itself into his,
seizing it so she can gently tug him gently
along, he substantiates, "Oh, yeah, like
for sure.  I would've called."

Scully's taking this all in, without saying
one other word, makes him uneasy all over
again.

"Is it okay, Scully?" Langly asks, as though
spot checking.

"Of course.  Come in."

Once inside, and looking squeamish, he hems
and haws, "Uh, Scully. . .do you think
like. . .uh, like maybe you'd let us use
your car?  --That is, if you've got one
handy."

While Scully mulls this nugget, Lislita nods
along with Langly to lend mute encouragement.

"Like it'd be awesome if we could.  I'd like
to show your cousin some of the deeply cool,
out of the way places the average visitor'd
never hit.  Public transportation sucks the
big one. . ."

Scully deftly raises her eyebrow.

"Well, you know. . .you miss your bus, or
train, ya gotta wait what seems forever till
the next one."

(Tough.)  Scully is about to say it's out of
the question until.

"How'bout it, huh?  Could you make it happen?"

"Langly, I'm, I'm really not at liberty to--"

"Oh, could we, Day?  Pretty please. . .with
'azucar,' sugar on top?  It would make getting
around so much easier."

(Oh, fine, like I really have a choice now.)

"I guess so.  Sure."  (That's one of my
biggest problems, I'm too damn accommodating.)

"Outstanding, Scully!"  Langly reachs out to
ruffle her shoulder.  "We're in!"

"Thank you so much, Day.  Sure you won't
change your mind about tagging along?  You
and Mulder?"

Langly swallows hard, and blinks.  He looks
very shook, like the time when he'd left
the front door of the warehouse unlocked
and had had nightmares each night about
thieves breaking in while he and the guys
had been in North Carolina, doing some
investigative work near Kitty Hawk for a
story on the Wright Brothers.

He holds his baited breath.

"That'd be all right with you, wouldn't it,
Langly?" Lislita asks, round-eyed and
innocent.

Stammering, he gives it a game try, trying
to cover up his true feelings, but Scully
cuts him off.  "On behalf of a randomly-
absent Mulder and my present-and-accounted
for self, I'll decline."  As she goes for
the keys which are lying atop her TV, she
says, "Just be careful with government
property signed out under my name."

"F.B.I. wheels," Langly whispers with a
slight blink of his eyes, and a dry swallow.

Upon returning, she interrupts their hushed
conversation, and tactfully says, "Now get
going, you two," before handing the key ring
off to Langly who's still marvelling.  He
snaps the Versace jacket Lislita's in the
motions of putting on, out of her hands, and
helps her slip into it, and eagerly follows
behind her to the door.  Gratefully he
whispers to Scully on their way out, "Thanks,
G-woman, I owe ya big.  Next time you need an
ultra-sensative hack, or a hard to get a
handle on locatee, you see me."

Scully's indulgent smile is tersely topped
off by her careful reply, "Just take good
care of my cousin, Langly.  That's the
greatest favor you can do for me."

Lislita's face could be a poster for a 'Be
all that you can be' ad, and she laughs the
way she did once when 'Bad Boy Billy' tried
scaring Dana and her, not Melissa, though,
with warty frogs one summer during a family
picnic that had morphed into a reunion at
Gull Pond in Massachusetts.

As her cousin walks off with 'the Stooge'
she knows the least about, arm-in-arm, he
tosses over his shoulder, "Don't sweat it,
she's in the best hands."

Scully flicks a dismissive wave at him.
(If yours turn out to be the cop-more-than-
a-feel kind, you can kiss your you-know-what
goodbye, Larry.)


END PART 1