Title: The Nursing Home
Author: Dru
Rating: PG-13
Summary: People are going missing in the area around the Meadow Arms nursing home, and it's up to the Gunmen to figure out why. What they don't know is that investigating it will land Langly in hot water, quite literally. Langly/OC
Disclaimers: However much I may wish, I do not own our favorite conspiracy theorists. The only things in this story that I do own are Rebecca Morris and the plot. This is part eight in the 'Objects out of Place' series.


"You are drunk," Rebecca Morris said into her white plastic phone. "Completely and utterly pissed,"

"You, my dear Rebbie have been spending entirely too much time with April," her brother replied from the other end of the phone call, somewhere in nowherseville North Dakota talking to her for the first time in years. "She's starting to rub off on you,"

"Not true, I've only met her once and that was on your wedding day," she complained, tossing a piece of kettle corn into her mouth. "Where is she by the way? Lose her in Illinois?"

"Very funny. For your information she is in our hotel room, sleeping," he answered, standing at the pay phone outside of his hotel room. "We're heading off early in the morning,"

"You're practically a slave driver Jamie," she replied, jokingly as she pulled a blanket over her to shield her from the cold temperatures of her apartment; thanks to the shoddy heating. "You'd better let her rest. Not all of us have your ability to function on three or less hours of sleep,"

"I hear you're catching up on me. You know that mother is worried sick about you. You never call her anymore," he said in a worried tone of voice.

"I'm fine. You don't have to play the big brother," she wrapped the blanket tighter around herself. "I'm just a bit sick,"

"So, I have April, Charlotte has Brendon, and even Jessica has Wesley," he listed off the names of their siblings and their spouses. "What about you? You're the only Morris to remain unwed,"

"Oh, you want to know if I have a boyfriend do you? Is that where this is gong?" she asked, flicking some more pieces of popcorn into her mouth.

"Well, yes. I would hope you would tell us all before you got married," he snickered. "So do you? Or are you going to be an old spinster?"

"You know what? As a matter of fact I do have a boyfriend," she blurted out, knowing that she didn't have a boyfriend; but he was all the way in North Dakota what could he do about it?

"Really? And what is his name?" he asked.

"His name is Richard," she smacked herself for saying Langly's first name since there was no way a relationship would develop between them.

"And his last name?" he asked once more.

"Langly, Richard Langly," once again she smacked herself for using Langly's name as her nonexistent boyfriend.

"Well, then. I'll just have one of my friends look him up, see if he's real or not," he said, pulling out a pad of paper to write the name down. "So it's L-A-N-G-L-Y?"

"Yes," she said, annoyed. Rebecca could hear his pen scratching on the paper from the other side of the line, then she heard some short beeps: she had another call. "Sorry I've got to go. There's someone calling me, chances are it's my boyfriend," she hung up on him and was immediately transferred to the new call.

"Beck?" sure enough it was Langly, not that he was her boyfriend or anything.

"Yeah it's me," she shivered. "What's up?"

"Pack some clothes," he ordered. "We're going to Florida,"


"You guys better explain to me why you dragged me off of my nice comfy couch at midnight to pack some clothes and head to Florida," Rebecca demanded, carrying a duffel bag full of clothes and a carry-on bag with several novels and money. She had hastily dressed in jeans and an old top because Langly had pressed her about the urgency of getting moving quickly.

"Several tourists have gone missing in northern Florida, around a nursing home called Meadow Arms," Langly explained, grabbing her duffel bag and giving it to the person at the desk to put with the other luggage.

"And this merited me getting up?" she asked. "And thanks,"

"The tourists vanish every other Monday," he added. "We figure that the police are being bribed to not investigate since they're not really doing anything. And that in itself merits an investigation,"

"Plus, it's Sunday," Frohike jumped in. "That means the next tourist will go missing tomorrow,"

"You could have said that over the phone," she complained. "Fair warning if anyone tries waking me up on the plane ride I rip their heads off," she muttered, walking with Langly and the rest of the Gunmen to board the plane.

"Why would I do that? You look so cute when you sleep," Langly commented.

"You're so sweet," she smiled and sat down in her seat which was between Langly and Byers, Frohike and Jimmy were sitting in the row behind them. Before they had even taken off, Rebecca had fallen asleep with her head on Langly's shoulder and it didn't seem that he minded.


"Welcome to (insert name of Northern Florida airport here) Airport," the voice of the pilot said over the intercom, waking Rebecca from what was probably the deepest she had slept since the incident with the box. The fact that her head was on Langly's shoulder was probably the reason why. When she woke up she realized that he too had fallen asleep and his head was resting on top of hers.

"Langly wake up we're there," she whispered, not being able to move her head since his was on it.

"Wha?" he lifted his head up and when he realized the position they had been in he turned bright red from embarrassment. "Oh, sorry,"

"Don't apologize," she said, stretching her arms out above her head. "You're comfy," If it was even possible Langly turned even more red at that statement, he looked like a lobster with lone blonde hair. Rebecca stood up, grabbing her carry-on bag and going to join the line of people that were exiting the plane.

"Th thanks," he stammered, following her and grabbing his own carry-on bag that contained his laptop and other hacking supplies.

"Come on you two lovebirds, the next disappearance should happen today," said Frohike, pushing his way past them and off of the plane.

"Shut up Dohikey," Langly muttered under his breath as he hurried off the plane after him. Rebecca, Byers, and Jimmy followed them at a much slower pace that didn't involve shoving people back into their seats.

It was much warmer in Florida than it had been up in D.C., for the first time in months Rebecca wasn't wearing a heavy jacket or wrapping a blanket tight around her. It wasn't summer weather, but much better than winter back home. Home, since when had she seen D.C. as home? She supposed it was when she unpacked all of her things and knew she'd be here for a while.

"Wow, it's so much warmer down here," Jimmy proclaimed, rushing over to the luggage conveyor belt to grab all of their bags. "No one's stolen any of them,"

"Were you worried?" Rebecca asked, taking her old and worn out duffel bag from his hands.

"Well, yeah. I've had loads of stuff stolen at airports," he explained, handing each of the Gunmen their own bag until he was left with his own piece of luggage, a dark green rolling suitcase.

"Really? I travel all the time and it's never happened to me," she yawned, covering her mouth with her hand.

"You still tired? You were sleeping the whole flight," Jimmy asked, slightly worried.

"You sound like my brother. I'm always tired when I wake up," she explained. "Coffee usually helps," she added, eyeing the Starbucks in the food court.

"I think all of us could use some breakfast before we go to the motel," Byers suggested.

"Definitely," Rebecca agreed, walking towards the food court and to her beloved Starbucks with the Gunmen right behind them. As soon as they got inside they split up, each going to their preferred type of food. Jimmy went into KFC, Rebecca into Starbucks, Langly into Burger King, Byers into Panera Bread, and Frohike went to a small restaurant's all-you-can-eat-buffet.

About half an hour later, after they had eaten their fill and were quite content, they boarded a bus that would be stopping a half-mile away from their dingy motel. On the way, Rebecca, who was sitting next to Langly, just stared out the window at all of the palm trees and the sunny weather. It reminded her of LA, without all the buildings and traffic, and stirred up a feeling of longing for her old home. She found it strange how she couldn't wait to get out of LA when she lived there but now that she wasn't there she wanted the sunny weather back. The phrase the grass is always greener on the other side came to mind, so did the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain but she figured that recalling that was just her being silly and whimsical.

Lost in thoughts about just why Spanish rain falls mostly on the plains she didn't even notice they had stopped until Langly had poked her several times.

"Earth to Rebecca," he said, having resorted to shaking her violently.

"Langly," she muttered. "Stop that,"

"You're the one who was spacing out." he protested, grabbing his luggage. "What were you doing anyway?"

"Daydreaming," she replied, getting up and exiting the bus right behind Langly.

"What about?" he asked, watching the bus pull away and leave them in a small town with a ten minute hike to their motel ahead of them.

"Spain," Rebecca stated, noticing that the others had already started to head toward the motel and began to follow them.

"Wha?" Langly said, very confused as he jogged to catch up with her "Spain?"

"Yes Spain," she turned around to face him so she was walking backwards. "What's wrong with Spain?"

"Nothing," he caught up with her easily since she had to walk slower since she was facing the opposite way that she was watching. "Are we there yet?" he asked a couple of minutes later in a whiny voice.

"No, Langly if we were there yet you would see the motel," Rebecca said, annoyed with him. "And unless it's invisible I don't see it, therefore we are not there yet. And if you ask one more time I'll shove a sock down your throat,"

"Someone had a little too much coffee," he muttered, struggling to carry his heavy bag full of hacking gear.

"I heard that," she yelled back to him, since he was falling behind the others. "And I'm not the one who is whining worse than a three year old,"

"I am not acting like a three year old," Langly protested, breathing heavily.

"Yes you are, and you must be really out of shape if you're breathing hard already," she replied as she stopped for him to catch up.

"I'm not out of shape, I just didn't have loads of caffeine this morning like you," to demonstrate his point he broke out into a sprint and dashed past her, while she just watched amused. However, he was only able to keep this up for a short distance before he stopped to catch his breath, panting. "See,"

"Of course, and if the six yard sprint ever makes it to the Olympics you'll be it's champion," she proclaimed, walking until she had caught up to him. "We'd better hurry up, the other guys are pretty far ahead of us,"

"I'm coming,"


They were all settled into their motel rooms, the four Gunmen in one and Rebecca getting her own. Langly and Frohike had gone down to the police station to see if they could find any additional information on the disappearances, while Rebecca, Jimmy, and Byers were staying back at the motel since they only had one rental car. They hadn't actually paid for the car, Langly had hacked into the rental car company's database and put them on the reservation list for a pre-paid one week rental.

It was still early in the morning, about eight o' clock or so, and there was nothing really good on TV, there were only about ten channels on the sometimes-color TV in her room. So Rebecca decided to take advantage of the nice weather to go outside and take a walk. Their motel was situated along a shoddily paved road and right next to a swamp, she usually thought of swamps as being more to the south but she figured they could be this far north and that it wasn't that strange. She avoided it due to the fact that she would like to avoid alligators, or were there crocodiles in Florida? She really didn't know but she decided that both of them were bad so she went in the opposite direction of the swamp into a meadow.

As was usual, her mind began to wander. And at this point in time her mind wandered over to what had been the topic of most of her wanderings of the mind as of late: Langly. She had to admit that she was quite attracted to him, she had always liked the geeky guys. Still, she was afraid to get involved with him and she knew why: because he would but his job before her and after going through that with her last boyfriend she wouldn't tolerate it again. Although, she could argue that it wouldn't be a problem with Langly since they both had the same job. She was getting quite tired of arguing with herself and decided to wander her mind to something less controversial in her own head, so she found a nice spot and lay down on her back.

She looked up into the blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds and began to form pictures from them, like psychiatrists make you do with inkblots only clouds are fuzzier than inkblots. A particularly large one near the horizon looked very much, to her anyway, like a dragon and another one just above that one looked like a dog. She also saw: a hand, a tree, a UFO-a cloud shaped like one not the actual thing, and an ice cream cone.

It wasn't long before she decided to close her eyes and rest them for a moment, after looking almost directly at the sun for a while. Even though she had slept pretty well on the plane, she hadn't been getting enough sleep lately so without making a conscious effort to she drifted off into sleep.

"Hey, is it dead?" a voice said from above her, young probably a boy. This woke Rebecca up, but she feigned sleep for the moment, curious to see what actions they would take next.

"I dunno, poke it," another voice said, once again probably belonging to a boy of about the same age. Then she felt a stick being pressed into her side.

"It's not moving," the first voice declared, poking her once more harder this time.

"I can see that you moron," the second one replied, kicking her side very hard. Rebecca jolted up, shocking both boys.

"You little brats better get out of here soon before I lose my temper," she got to her feet, brushing pieces of grass off of her jeans.

"Oh, yeah and what happens if you lose your temper?" the one who had kicked her asked, puffing out his chest in an attempt to look menacing.

"This," she shoved the kid out of her way and started to walk back to the motel.

"That's nothin'," the other one proclaimed, running up behind her and kicking the back of her leg.

"You little monster," she stated, grabbing him by the back of his shirt and making him fall to the ground, once more starting to head back to the motel.

"You'll pay for that you bitch," he grabbed the stick and smacked it on her upper back.

"Yeah, like that really hurt," she put her key in the lock and went back into her hotel room. "Better luck next time," she shouted as the door closed in the faces of the two boys.

She could hear their pounding on the door for about another fifteen minutes before they finally gave up and went away. Now with a pounding headache, she Rebecca reached into her carry-on bag and pulled out a bottle of Tylenol. Getting a water bottle, she popped a pill and waited for her the hammer hitting her brain to go away.

"Beck," she heard Langly call from the other side of the door, as he pounded on it. "Beck, open up,"

"I'll be right there Langly," she shouted, putting away her water bottle and Tylenol.

"Hurry up," he shouted back. "We're heading to the nursing home now," he banged on the door some more.

"What do you hope to accomplish by that?" she walked over so she was close to the door. "Other than annoying the hell out of me,"

"To get you to hurry up," he explained, continuing his banging.

"Really? Because all it's making me want to do is stay in my room just to annoy you," she said in a sickly sweet voice.

"Come on, just hurry up," he shouted louder. "Please," he added, stopping his abuse of the helpless door.

"Okay, but only because you said 'please'," she unlocked the door and stepped outside to where Langly was waiting.

"We really need to hurry now," Langly grabbed her wrist, pulling her towards their rental car.

"Are all five of us really going to fit into that thing?" Rebecca asked, eyeing the rather small car with disdain.

"It was the only one left on the lot," he explained, practically shoving her into it.

"You're such the gentleman," she said, her voice laden with sarcasm.

"Thank you," he replied, every bit as sarcastically as she had made her previous comment.

"You guys bicker like a married couple," Jimmy noted, and then Langly's tennis shoe came flying through the air at him.

"Don't make me pull over," Byers warned, this, of course, caused waves of laughter to erupt through the entire car. Although Langly and Frohike snickered a little bit and Rebecca giggled, Jimmy was the one who laughed the hardest.

"Byers, you sound like my mother,"


They reached Meadow Arms in little under an hour. Following Byers's orders; Langly, Jimmy, and Rebecca kept quiet for the rest of the trip. Although Langly and Rebecca did pretend not to notice how their knees were touching the entire trip due to the confined space of the car, they did manage to make it to their destination without bickering. Once the car pulled to a complete stop, Langly practically sprinted out of the car and into the large parking lot.

Rebecca exited the car at a more leisurely pace as did the rest of the Gunmen. She saw Langly enter the building, and then turned her attention away from it and onto the other three Gunmen.

"So where do we start?" she asked.

"I think we should interview some residents, see if they saw anything," Byers suggested. "I have a hunch that it's one of the workers here. Since all of the disappearances have been visitors to here,"

"Did Langly and Frohike figure that out at the police station?" Rebecca picked up some police reports from the front seat and held them up.

"They stole it," he explained, apologetically.

"Sounds just like them," she tucked the police reports under her arm and headed towards the front doors of the home.

"I'm standing right here," Frohike reminded them. "I didn't go running off like some people," he mumbled under his breath.


Langly dashed into the nursing home, nearly knocking over an old lady carrying a plate of cookies. She was rather short and wearing a heavy sweatshirt and long ugly polka dotted skirt. She didn't seem angry with him for nearly knocking him over, she held out her cookies.

"Would you like one?" she asked, in a feeble voice that fitted in with her little old lady image.

"Sure," he replied, taking a few off of the plate. "Thanks," he took a bite of one, thoroughly chewing and swallowing it before speaking again. "I'm from a newspaper, we're investigating some disappearances that have occurred around here," he took another bite. "Have you noticed anything strange?" he asked, devouring a whole cookie.

"I can not say that I have," she said, smiling. "Do you like the cookies?"

"They're del-" and Langly collapsed onto the floor, out cold.

"I thought so," she was still smiling. "Bernard, Joseph. I have the next one," she yelled to two old elderly men that were sitting at a table playing chess.

"You sure he's a virgin?" Bernard asked, leaning over the unconscious man.

"I'm positive," the old lady insisted. "I know these things,"

"Alright, if you say so Bernice," Bernard grabbed onto Langly's arms and motioned for Joseph to grab his legs.

"He's going to be very tasty," Bernice smiled at Joseph's comment and commended herself for always making the best selections, when it was her turn to pick them they were the best.

"Thank you Joseph. Now we should get him out of the hall so that no one will find him before nightfall so that we perform the ceremony,"

"You're the best," Joseph complemented her.

"I know,"


Rebecca and the Gunmen entered the front lobby of Meadow Arms, it was strangely empty. One would expect that there would at least be some sort of receptionist or something to greet visitors. There weren't even any old people. Rebecca thought that the lobby was without a doubt the ugliest thing that she had ever seen. The walls were a salmon pink with a turquoise railing running across all of the walls, and the floor was covered in a navy blue carpet. She wasn't an interior designer by any means, her own apartment was a disaster, but she knew that this was just awful. The wicker chairs didn't help much at all.

"Man this place is ugly," Jimmy practically shouted out.

"I wholeheartedly agree," she went behind the desk where a receptionist should have been and pulled out the police reports.

"What are you doing?" Frohike asked, leaning over the desk to try to see what she was doing on the computer.

"Seeing who the victims were seeing," she explained. "Maybe if we can find a common link we'll be one step closer to the kidnapper. And where is Langly?"

"I don't know," Byers said. "I'll go look for him," he walked down one of the three hallways leading off into the recesses of the home.

"I'm going too," Jimmy yelled as he ran after Byers.

"I'd better stay here," Frohike suggested. "In case you need help with the computer,"

"There are no passwords," Rebecca stated. "And no security to speak of,"

"That's odd," he said, walking over so that he too was behind the desk. "Very odd,"

The next four hours were spent looking up each victim in the visitors log, which turned out to be a dead end since none of them visited the same person, and with Byers and Jimmy looking for Langly. They never found him, and they were starting to get worried since it wasn't an incredibly large nursing home and there weren't any places that he could be that they hadn't already checked.

At six, when it was getting dark, Byers and Jimmy went back to the lobby to report that they hadn't found much of anyone, and that Langly was still gone.

"Do you think that he's okay?" Rebecca wondered out loud, hoping for a reassuring answer.

"We don't have any indication that he is or isn't," Byers's answer wasn't exactly the type of one that she had been wishing for. She raised her hand to her mouth and began to chew on her, already ratty, fingernails as she always did when she was nervous. It was at this time that all of the lights went out, plunging the entire home into near darkness.

"I don't think that is a good thing," she stated, getting up from the swivel chair she had been sitting in. "Do you think it has anything to do with Langly?"

"Maybe," Byers offered. Then they heard chanting coming from somewhere in the home. "We should split up, try to see where it's coming from,"

"You're thinking that wherever it's coming from that's where Langly is?" Frohike asked, following Byers's train of thought. He heard footsteps, running from the lobby and off down one of the hallways.

"I think Rebecca is a bit ahead of you guys on the plan," Jimmy noted her footsteps becoming softer as she got further and further away from them.

"Yeah,"


The chanting was getting louder as Rebecca ran through the hallways, stopping only when she reached an intersection. Here she would listen for the direction the chanting was coming from and go that way. Soon she reached a room that she was sure the chanting was coming from, it was really loud chanting too, loud enough to be heard throughout the whole nursing home. She highly doubted that old people could make that loud of a noise, and it would explain why they hadn't seen many staff members.

"We feast on the flesh of the virgin to guarantee our immortality," the chanting had stopped and only one person was speaking now. Langly was missing, and the voice did say virgin so that means-. Langly was a virgin? Rebecca nearly snickered at the thought, but she was more worried about Langly. Mainly the fact that he was about to become their next meal, which didn't bode well for the geek. "With this last victim our pact with Markis is complete and our immortality granted," the person continued speaking.

She tested the door handle and found it to be, luckily, unlocked. Slowly and carefully she stepped inside the apartment, she could see a group of elderly people standing outside on the large patio that all of the inner apartments shared. The home was shaped like a square, with a hole in the center. All of the apartments that had doors opening to the hole shared a massive patio. Cautiously, Mission Impossible style, she proceeded, hiding behind corners to ensure her invisibility. It was a small apartment so she could reach the sliding glass door easily, it was open and that was why it seemed that the chanting was coming from inside this apartment.

Since it was already open, Rebecca could easily slip through undetected. The scene outside was horrendous. Langly was unconscious with his hands and feet bound, he was lying on a table right next to a giant pot of boiling water and surrounded by elderly people cheering as one very old lady was selecting a knife. She could only guess what it was for, cutting Langly's throat. There were so many old people that it made her wonder how she was going to get Langly out of this mess. The whole scene looked like something out of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, only with elderly people who didn't cut out their victim's hearts but ate them instead and, of course, there was no Harrison Ford.

She figured that a distraction would work, so she pulled out her lighter that she always carried around even though she didn't smoke, flicked it on, and threw it onto a patch of particularly dry and brown grass. She started carrying around a lighter ever since reading a book where one of the main characters, Sally Wilcox, carried around a lighter and it always helped her out so she figured she'd better do the same. This was the first real opportunity she'd had to use it, and was now glad that she had decided to keep it in her pocket all the time.

The patch of grass burst into flame, just like she had hoped. Since all of their attention would be diverted to the flaming grass, she hoped that they wouldn't notice her as she dashed over to rescue the unconscious Langly. And sure enough all of their attention was on the small fire and they ran over to try to put it out, even the one who was about to slit Langly's throat, dropping her knife as she ran.

This was her chance, and Rebecca took it. She ran over to the table that Langly was lying on and quickly cut through the twine that were serving as bonds, they had obviously counted on him not waking up before being murdered, which he wouldn't have. By putting one of his arms around her shoulders and using one of hers to support him, she was able to drag him quicker than just pulling on his arms. Unfortunately, Murphy's Law seemed to be with Rebecca and one of the elderly people saw them trying to escape.

"She's taking the sacrifice," he shouted, and the horde of old folks charged towards her, the fire forgotten.

She knew that they wouldn't make it to the door she had entered through in time, so she just tried to make it through the closest sliding door. Fortunately it was unlocked and she locked it behind her, leaving some of the elderly people to try to pound on the door, like zombies in one of the Dawn of the Dead movies. Others however, were smarter and went through the adjacent apartment doors to try and intercept her in the hallways.

Luckily she was faster than they were and could make it into the hallway before them, and made a mad dash for the lobby. How Jimmy, Byers, and Frohike had failed to hear all of the commotion and come running to her aid was a mystery to her, she just assumed they were too far away or had really bad hearing. Rebecca was able to make it outside before the horde even reached the lobby, and pulled several large potted plants in front of the front doors, locking them as well, to ensure that they wouldn't be getting out anytime soon. Still, that left Byers, Frohike, and Jimmy in danger, but only if they were virgins. She figured that they were safe.

Going over to the car, just to be safe, she sat down next to it with her back resting against the passenger side door. Langly was still unconscious, but definitely very much alive. His head was resting on her shoulder, like she had done to him on the plane ride here.

"You're lucky you know," she said, running her fingers through his long hair. "I wonder how they caught you. They're a bunch of little old ladies. I don't think they used force," she sighed. "I bet you'll tell us everything when you wake up. You're adorable, you know that? I really am attracted to you. But it would never work out, you're too dedicated to you work. And I don't think I could stand to come second, I guess I'm just selfish like that," she muttered to her self, sadly and kissed him on the forehead. "Sweet dreams, cutie,"


It had been a week since the incident at the nursing home, it had turned out that the elderly people had thought that by eating Langly they would all become young and live forever, so they had knocked out and locked all of the workers in a closet figuring that they wouldn't need them. They all were arrested for murder, kidnapping and a number of other charges and were awaiting sentencing, since none of them pleaded not guilty. After Rebecca had taken Langly outside, the others had found them less than a half of an hour later, having escaped through a window.

And now Rebecca was sitting back in her own apartment, wrapped up in a blanket and watching A Christmas Carol on tv, in preparation for Christmas which was still a good three weeks away. She cursed her building's heating problems as she went into her bedroom to get yet another blanket to put on her couch. Right now it resembled an igloo with all of the blanket's piled on top of it in a dome shape.

Just as she was settling in to resume her watching of the old movie, a loud knock came at the door accompanied by someone ringing the door bell. Rebecca groaned, noting the fact that she was wearing her ratty old flannel pajamas and not exactly wanting anyone so see her like that. So she just figured she'd hide under the many blankets and ignore it. Unfortunately, the person wanting to see her was persistent and kept banging on the door and ringing the doorbell until it threatened to give her a headache. Not wanting that to happen she reluctantly went over to the door and opened it, surprised to note that it was Langly who was standing there.

"Can I come in?" he asked shyly.

"Sure," she replied, opening the door wider to let her in, extremely self conscious about her own tattered appearance, and knowing that hiding under her many blankets had given her severe bed head.

"You remember last week when I nearly got eaten by old people?" he asked, sounding like he had practiced this. It made Rebecca slightly worried.

"Of course I do," she stated, afraid of what he was going to say next.

"You rescued me," he added, as if she hadn't known. "Yeah, well I was awake the whole time. Just paralyzed,"

"Oh," she said meekly, stunned by this news and not too happy about it either.

"I think you're wrong," now he really sounded like he had practiced this. "I'm not the only one working at the Lone Gunman, there's always Byers, Frohike, and even Jimmy. It's not like I can get transferred or anything. I have time for a life,"

"Langly, I really like you," she explained, turning away from him. "But I just can't,"

"Rebecca," he sounded like a kicked puppy dog. "Just give it a chance,"

"I can't," she took a few steps further away from him. "I'm sorry but I can't"

"I understand," he said, sounding hurt. His tone of voice killed Rebecca, because she wanted to make him happy but was too afraid to do anything. And he walked past her, exiting the apartment. As soon as he closed the door behind him, Rebecca felt a feeling of dread. She knew that she had made a huge mistake and dashed out into the hallway to see if she could fix it. Luckily Langly was still in the hall, walking towords the stairs.

"Langly, stop," she shouted, making him turn around hopefully. He seemed so be expecting her to say something but she didn't know what to say, so she just walked up to him and grabbed his hand that was dangling at his side. Holding onto his hand, she leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips. Langly wrapped his free hand around her waist to pull her closer to him, but instead of kissing her again he bent over and whispered in her ear.

"I'm glad you changed your mind,"

THE END

A/N: The book mentioned about one of the characters always having a lighter is actually a children's book series called Spooksville by Christopher Pike. Rebecca is most likely too old to have read them as a child, but she still could have read them as an adult and I just love Spooksville, it's my favorite book series of all time, definitely better than Goosebumps. Just in case anyone got the wrong idea, this is not the end of the Objects out of Place series...it will continue...