Disclaimer: Not mine. None of it is mine.
A/N: This is totally a joke story. My friend gave me a list of words to put in a story and this is what came out.
Thursday, May 15, 1995
2:07 AM
Elevator of the Hilton Hotel in Niagra Falls
"This is ridiculous," Scully mumbled under her breath. "I'm stuck in an elevator with one of the world's most brilliant hackers."
"I'll get us out, don't worry," Langly told her as he tried to open the panel that held the buttons for the floor. "It's happened before."
Scully opened her mouth to say something rude but thought better of it and closed it. It was never a good idea to be rude to the only person who could get her out of a place before the six hours that the telephone operator had promised. "I just can't believe that the entire city of Niagra Falls lost power."
"It's happened before," Langly repeated, then uttered a small shout of triumph as the panel came off.
"I also don't see how that could help anything."
"It's something to do," Langly pointed out.
"Something to do?" Scully exploded. "You're taking apart the elevator we're stuck in for something to do?"
"Relax. We're not going to fall," he assured her.
Scully glared at him. "Why don't you do something useful, like work or read."
"You're one to talk. You've been yelling the whole time."
At that, Scully sat down heavily and opened her briefcase, pulling out a book and a bottle of water. "Fine," she snapped. "I'll read." Scully opened her book and took out her water bottle, taking a long sip.
"What're you reading?" Langly asked, moved over to Scully, in the process accidentally jarring her arm, spilling her water all over her and the book, while miraculously staying dry himself.
"Langly!" Scully yelled. "You're paying for a new copy of this book!"
"It's still readable," he replied, trying to convince himself as well as Scully.
"If it weren't for the fact that it's the library's copy, I might consider letting it go," she replied angrily. "But I'm not returning a water-soaked book to the public library."
Langly sighed. "Fine. What is it?"
"Hannibal by Thomas Harris," Scully replied.
Langly quickly took out a pen and wrote it down on a piece of paper before sticking it back into his bag and leaning against the wall of the elevator opposite Scully.
"I still don't know why you're here in the first place," Scully remarked after a couple of minutes of silence. "Mulder and I are on a case together, one that has no obvious connection to the Lone Gunmen."
Langly shrugged as if he didn't know, but his eyes told her more.
"What is it?" she asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"Well . . . It actually has nothing to do with your case . . . What is your case, anyway?"
Scully rolled her eyes. "Something about an alien vampire."
Langly snorted. "An alien vampire?"
"I have no idea. Ask Mulder."
"But you're supposed to be on this case together . . ." Langly trailed off.
"We are. He called me from his hotel room, asking me to come up. He only gave me the bare minimum . . . as always," Scully explained, the last part sounding slightly sad.
"Doesn't that bother you?" Langly asked. "Always being dragged into something and not knowing what?"
"It's not always," Scully snapped, instantly coming to Mulder's defence. "Only sometimes."
"You didn't answer my question."
"Why should I tell you?" Scully asked.
"Because we're stuck in an elevator," Langly replied, "with nothing else to do."
Scully rolled her eyes and didn't say anything.
"Scully?" Langly prompted gently. "I swear I won't tell anyone."
She sighed. "I-I guess," she stammered. "Sometimes. But I know that, at least this time, he couldn't help it because somebody might have been listening."
"Somebody?" Langly asked. "Who?"
"I don't know!" Scully yelled. "I never know! I care about Mulder more than I've ever cared about anyone else, with a few exceptions, and I know he trusts me, but it wouldn't kill him to show it!"
Langly stared at Scully, slightly amazed. He had never heard her talk about Mulder like that. It was always rainbows and sunshine when it came down to him.
Scully sighed. "I'm sorry. I just-"
"It's alright," interrupted Langly. "I know how it feels."
Scully looked at him oddly. "You do? I thought that The Lone Gunmen told each other everything."
"Almost," Langly corrected, "but I was talking about Mulder. Half the time I'm doing something for him, I have no idea what it is."
Scully crossed her legs and started fiddling with the end of her high heel. "Yeah . . . And what's the almost that you guys don't know about each other?"
"How'd you know it's something personal?" Langly asked her with suspicion.
"It's logical."
"And what makes you think I'd tell you what I wouldn't tell my best friends?"
Scully flashed him a smile. "We're stuck in an elevator with nothing else to do."
"Not going to work."
She shrugged. "Alright." Scully again opened her briefcase, took out a folder and started leafing through it. Eventually she pulled out a piece of paper.
"What is it?" Langly asked, this time staying on his side of the elevator.
"A map to the graveyard where the bodies have been found," Scully informed him. "Mulder said that it was behind a museum, but I can't find it."
This time Langly did go over to her, carefully avoiding the closed bottle of water and sat down next to her, looking at the map. "Did he say which museum?"
Scully rolled her eyes again. "No. Of course not."
"Because there's a museum there," he pointed on the map, "and there."
"And there doesn't appear to be a graveyard behind either of them," Scully said, looking at the places where Langly had pointed.
"Who would put a graveyard behind a museum? Or a museum in front of a graveyard?" Langly asked rhetorically.
"Well, there's a church a couple blocks down from that one," Scully replied, pointing at a symbol of an angel which the key told her meant church.
"That's sort of behind it," Langly mused. "At any rate, you're not going there until we get out of this elevator."
Scully sighed again. "Yeah. And I'm taking stairs from now on."
"I usually do, but when I'm going to the eighteenth floor, I don't generally want to walk that high."
Scully smiled slightly and leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes. "Do you know what time it is?"
"Umm . . . no. Wait, yes." Langly picked up Scully's left hand and looked at her watch. "It's almost three. In the morning."
Scully groaned. "There isn't a time difference between here and D. C., is there?"
Langly laughed. "No. That's East to West."
"Mmm," she replied, already half asleep.
"You can lie down, you know," Langly told her, but she was already asleep.
Langly sighed and closed his own eyes. This . . . adventure in the elevator had not been good for him. Not at all. Spending what was now nearing an hour locked in an elevator with Scully was proving to be quite difficult. And when she had asked what he hadn't told the other Lone Gunmen, she had only made matters worse. Of course, she hadn't known that what he hadn't told them was about her.
Langly sighed again and opened his eyes. The wall of the elevator really was very uncomfortable. He untied his jacket from around his waist and leaned against it, wishing it was as smooth as his pillowcase at home instead of rough tweed. He closed his eyes and was almost asleep when he felt Scully's head drop onto his shoulder.
He instantly stiffened. "Scully . . ." he whispered. No answer. Which meant that she was asleep and hadn't known that she was leaning on his shoulder. He took a deep breath and tried to shift positions without disturbing her. All he managed to do before she twitched slightly was move his right arm, the one that she was leaning on.
Great, he thought to himself. Now what? But the answer was obvious. Langly did the only thing he could do; he wrapped his arm around Scully's shoulder, accidentally/on purpose drawing her closer. He spared a glance down at her and saw that she was smiling very slightly, something he rarely saw. Smiling himself, he drifted off to sleep, resisting the urge to lightly kiss her on the forehead as he had seen Mulder do so many times.
Thursday, May 15, 1995
7:14 AM
Room 1829 of the Hilton Hotel, Niagra Falls
Mulder jerked awake, sweat coating his body. He had had another nightmare. Mulder closed his eyes and then opened them, looking over at the clock. It was almost quarter past seven. He looked around the single room he had rented, but Scully wasn't there. His brow creased in worry. He had left a key for her at the desk with instructions to have it given to her, so by all means she should be in here, but she wasn't.
Mulder reached over to the bedside table and grabbed his cell phone. Instantly he cursed himself. He had forgotten to recharge it. Mulder instead picked up the phone that was in his hotel room. There was no sound.
"Shit," he muttered to himself. He got out of bed, quickly dressed and tried to open the door. Nothing. "Shit," he said again, realizing that the power was out. But the clock . . .?
"Batteries," Mulder said out loud, going back to his bed and sitting down, wishing instead that it was his familiar couch. Scully was probably stuck in the elevator.
Thursday, May 15, 1995
7:30 AM
Elevator of the Hilton Hotel in Niagra Falls
Scully's eyes slowly opened and she instantly panicked, not remembering why she was in an elevator snuggled against Langly's chest. Then she remembered the power outage and that she had fallen asleep. She had probably tilted sometime during the night.
Scully started to move away, but she felt his arm tighten around her. She looked at his face and realized that he was still asleep. A small smile touched her lips as she leaned back against him. Having nothing better to do, she thought back to the last time she was stuck in an elevator. It had been in Manhattan and she clearly remembered clutching her stuffed cat close against her chest, trying not to cry, but eventually giving in and clinging to her mother in fear.
This time it was much different. She was a grown woman, and not at all scared. And she didn't have a stuffed cat to hold onto.
Langly, a small part of her mind suggested, but the thought was quickly pushed away.
Scully shifted slightly, suddenly realizing that she hadn't used a bathroom in the past six hours. She glanced at her watch and smiled slightly to herself. She'd be out soon. In the meantime, Scully carefully moved out of Langly's arms and grabber her purse, moving the lipstick, tampons and various other things out of the way until she found the small deck of cards she always kept with her. Scully dealt out a game of Klondike.
"Scully?" she heard Langly's voice ask groggily a couple of minutes later.
"Good morning," she replied, not looking up from her game. "Sleep well?"
"Yeah, I guess," he replied, moving over so he could watch. "Move the two onto that pile."
She did as she was told, but not before saying, "This is solitaire, Langly."
"Well I'm stuck in an elevator with nothing better to do." They both laughed quietly and both realized at the same time that they had created an in-joke, something neither of them had done with anyone outside of their partners in a very long time.
"Would you like to play something else, then?" Scully asked, already gathering up the cards and shuffling.
"I could teach you to play Dragons and Snakes," Langly suggested. "Frohike and I invented it a while ago when we were bored."
"Sure," Scully replied.
"First you divide the deck into two piles . . ."
A half hour later when Scully's watch beeped, informing them it was eight, Scully and Langly were still playing. It was a surprisingly complicated and fun game, though she told herself that she shouldn't have been surprised. Langly and Frohike were geniuses, after all.
"Hang on a second," Scully said, putting down her hand and reaching over to the phone. "This is Special Agent Scully. I've been stuck inside of the elevator and I was wondering how much longer it will be." There was a pause before she replied, "Alright," and hung up.
"How much longer?" Langly asked.
"They don't know," Scully answered. "The operator said it should've been working a while ago."
Langly rolled his eyes. "No kidding . . ."
Scully stifled a giggle and picked up her hand again. "What was that rule about chasing again?" she asked.
"The dragon can chase the snake, but the snake can't chase the dragon," Langly reminded her. "But there are more snakes than dragons so it evens out."
"Yeah, I remember that," Scully replied and played the ace of spades, or the king of dragons. "Hah."
Langly mumbled something unintelligible under his breath and drew a card. "This isn't fair," he whined. "It's your first game and you're winning."
Scully smirked at him. "I'm a fast learner."
"I can tell," Langly replied.
"What's the hardest thing you can think of to learn?" Scully asked.
"Being the boyfriend, or in your case, girlfriend, of somebody you hate," Langly replied a couple of minutes later. "Who's the person you hate most?"
"The Cigarette Smoking Man," Scully replied instantly, causing Langly to snort.
"I can see it now . . . Special Agent Dana Scully, Cigarette Smoking Man's Girlfriend," he joked.
Scully laughed. "Not exactly my first choice in terms of boyfriends."
"Who is your first choice?" Langly asked, hoping he seemed casual.
Scully flushed a light shade of pink. "That's none of your business, Langly. And it's your turn."
Langly grudgingly returned to his hand. "This is the worst hand I've ever played. It's as low as you can go. Lower than the floor of the Grand Canyon."
Scully laughed slightly. "Oh good. But you still have to play."
Instead of playing a card, Langly asked, "What's your biggest ambition?"
Scully was taken aback by the question. "Ummm . . . to help the world. To make people happy. To make myself happy."
"Are you happy?" Langly asked.
Scully turned away from him, saying, "That's none of your business."
"You aren't, are you." It wasn't a question.
She sighed. "Almost."
"What's missing?"
Scully forced herself to look at Langly. "The person I'm in love with to love me."
"Who?" Langly asked, almost whispering.
Scully leaned over the large spread of cards and placed a fleeting kiss on Langly's mouth, then looked away, her face turning bright red.
"Scully?" When she didn't answer him, he asked instead, "Dana?"
The use of her first name forced her to look Langly in the face, but she refused to meet his eyes. He reached over and gently turned her head up until she was looking at him before kissing her back. At that moment, the elevator finally jerked into life, sending people, cards and bags flying. Langly and Scully, both sporting huge grins, quickly collected the cards and their bags just as the door opened to reveal a worried looking Mulder, whose concern instantly turned to suspicion when he saw the grins.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Nothing, Mulder," Scully replied, half pushing him towards his room. "Now what was so important that I had to fly all the way from Washington to help you with?"
"Well, there have been these attacks lately . . ."