Rating: PG-13

Summary: We got them married off...took long enough.

Spoilers: None.
 

"These are days you'll remember
Never before and never since, I promise
Will the world be warm as this.
And as you feel it, you'll know it's true that you
Are blessed and lucky.
It's true that you are touched by something
That will grow and bloom in you.

These are days.

These are the days you might fill with laughter
Until you break
These days you might feel a shaft of light
Make its way across your face
And when you do, you'll know how it was meant to be
See the signs and know their meaning
It's true, you'll know how it was meant to be
Hear the signs and know they're speaking to you, to you."

"These Are Days" by Rob Buck and Natalie Merchant, Copyright 1992 Christian Burial Music and used without permission.
 

Meum et Tuum
 

May 15, 2000

Hotel room of our newlyweds

"Wow. I just made love to my wife. What a concept." Langly had his head buried in my shoulder; we were both still gasping.

"A nice concept," I murmured as I snuggled him back.

We were quiet, soaking in the sensation of now making love as a married couple-but also we needed to catch our breath.

"What a day," I whispered.

"Pretty wild. Really cool that everyone came out for us."

"Yeah, it was."

We laid in each other's arms for some time after that, saying nothing. And if Langly was feeling anything like I was, the room was definitely swirling around. I wasn't sure if it was the liquor, the excitement, the sex, or all of the above.

In any case, exhausting but utterly delicious.

This delightful reverie was soon interrupted by a loud banging on our door, accompanied by numerous voices screaming to us through.

"What're you guys doing in there?" It was Renegade.

"Whaddya think we're doing?" Langly shouted back.

"Can we come in?" Another hacker's voice, one of the Elvis impersonators. I wondered if they were still in costume.

"No fucking way!" I yelled, immediately realizing my poor choice of words, but it was too late. I had a crowd of drunks at my door who were in a celebratory mood-and needless to say, EVERYONE knew what we were up to.

"Hey, you guys going on the pub crawl?" Renegade called back.

I looked at Langly and blinked. "What do you think?"

"Hmm. I think...might be fun just to stay here and screw our brains out. On the other hand, most of these guys are leaving tomorrow, and they came a long way, and we don't see 'em all that much..."

"Where're you starting?" I raised my voice, hopefully loud enough to be heard over the din.

"You say something?" One of the voices shouted back.

"Where the fuck do we meet you?" Langly could pack a lot more volume than I could.

"Downstairs. Then over to the Marriott. Then the Sheraton-"

"Okay, okay, we get the picture. We're coming."

"Want us to wait?"

"Get the fuck out of here!"
 

May 16, 2000

Was it someone pounding on our door, or just the slamming in my head?

"Please tell me there's no one there," Langly groaned hideously and buried his face in the pillow. It was a tossup as to who was in worse shape.

"There's no one there," I was in total pain, and I covered my head with the blanket.

"Then why the fuck is someone banging away at the door?"

"I think that's just my head."

"Tell your head to shut the fuck up then."

Unfortunately, that didn't work. The banging continued.

"Allison, are you in there?" Oh great. My mother. Well, at least she couldn't yell at me for not drinking my money's worth.

"If she asks, I'm dead and in hell," Langly pulled the covers up over him.

I made sure I'd remembered to put something on-I did have a T-shirt of Langly's on, so I was at least not totally exposed-and padded painfully to the door.

"Morning, Mother," I yawned as I shakily opened the door.

"Well, it looks like you had a good time," she observed. "About time you loosened up."

"Mother, if I got any looser, I'd be in liquid form and lying in a puddle on the floor."

"Anyway, I came by to tell you I'm getting ready to leave."

"Going back on the circuit?"

"No, I think I'm going to take a few weeks off, just hang around my house, things like that." This was my mother? Had I been sober enough, I'd have gotten really depressed. "All my friends had a good time, and so did I."

"I really appreciate all this, Mother." And I genuinely did, but at that moment, I'd have appreciated going back to bed even more. "You didn't have to do this, you know."

"You've never asked me for anything. And you won't be a young widow, like I was. It's not good to be alone, Allison. You're very lucky."

"I always say I'm twice blessed." Except when I have too much to drink.

"Thank you, Eleanor." I heard a pained moan from the bed, which I think was Langly's cue to my mother to be on her way.

"Bye, Langly. Be good to my girl."

He muttered something inaudible-and probably socially unacceptable-before stuffing his head under the pillow again.

"See you soon, I hope," my mother said-and reached out to hug me.

"Thank you for doing all this for me."

"Well, you are my only daughter...and, well...you know."

"Yeah, me too."

I watched as her short, chunky figure, dressed elegantly and expensively in navy and cream, her hair still streaked with red-even at her age, she hadn't gone totally gray-vanish into the elevator.

Why was I getting the creepy feeling it would be the last time I saw her?
 

I crawled back in next to a pained Langly. He groaned audibly as the bed moved.

"How long do we have the room for?"

"Till noon."

"What time's our flight?"

"5:15."

"Can we keep the room longer?"

"If we're willing to pay for it."

"We're willing. Call the desk."

The desk obliged us-I explained that we had just gotten married, and the Westin agreed that there'd be no extra charge, but we absolutely had to be gone at 3:00. Three extra hours were better than nothing.

I settled my aching head back on the pillow, only to be disturbed by another set of knocks on the door.

"You get it," Langly mumbled.

"Next time it's your turn," I reminded him.

It was my brother Rob and his family, getting ready to leave, and I hugged and kissed my nieces; I really hadn't spent much time with them, and they made me promise to bring Uncle Langly to visit them soon. I had no idea when we'd be able to make a trip to the Bay Area, but I hoped it wouldn't be long-and it'd be nice to go for something other than a funeral. Anne and
Jason followed behind them; Jason was going back on tour, and promised to come by when he was in the area again.

And Anne had scored a major coup-she'd gotten Genie to share some recipes.
 

"Your family has no respect for the dying," Langly grumbled when I yet crawled into bed.

"They don't look any better than we do. They have to leave, though." I snuggled up against Langly's chest, and he wrapped a tentative arm around me.

"Be careful," he moaned unhappily. "God, I haven't been this hung over in years."

I had to agree-it made my last hangover with Ellen look small time.

We might have scored five more minutes of sleep when there was more door-banging.

"I'm not answering," I warned Langly.

"We gotta do something about this. I gotta get some sleep."

"No way I can fly feeling this lousy."

Langly crawled out of bed, slowly and painfully, and slapped on a pair of shorts. I heard the lock snick as he undid it.

It was Byers and Juliet, and it sounded as if they were well-recovered from last night. Of course, they hadn't made the mistake of doing the pub crawl...they stayed in their room and fucked like bunnies, in all likelihood. I think I heard the word 'breakfast' in there somewhere.

"Byers...you're my best man, right?"

"Well, yes."

"So you gotta help us."

"I'll be back in five minutes."

A short time later, Byers and Juliet reappeared, carrying a large slab of cardboard and a dry marker. Langly and I looked at them quizzically-we were both in bed, we'd given them the key so we didn't have to move again-but they both sat at the table.

"We have the privacy sign up. Everybody ignores it," Langly whined.

"Well, maybe something a little more defined would help," Juliet suggested. "John, give me the marker." After a few minutes of the skritching of the marker-how could a magic marker be loud, I wondered-Juliet pronounced her work finished.

"What'd you write? This crowd doesn't exactly respond to subtlety," I asked her.

"Okay, here goes. 'Dear Guests, we're thrilled and pleased and delighted and honored that you took the trouble and expense to show up for our wedding. We really do appreciate that you came, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. However, we are both majorly suffering from the effects of too much celebrating...so if you value our friendship, not to
mention your life and limb, don't knock! We love you, Ally and Langly."

"Worth a try," I mumbled, and fell back to sleep.
 

I don't know if we just lapsed into total comas or if people heeded the sign, but we got a few more hours of sleep, and felt somewhat improved when we got our 2:00 wakeup call.

"Don't know about you, Ally girl," Langly said, toweling off his vanilla-colored hair-God he looked sexy-"but I'm ready for a vacation."

"I'm always ready for vacation, babe. Now whether or not I'm ready to fly, that's another matter."

"Yeah, in a few hours we'll be in Manzanillo."

"That I'm looking forward to. Can't we just get a transporter beam to take us there?"

He gave me a small hug around the shoulders. "C'mon, it's gonna be great. Besides, I've never gone on a honeymoon before."
 

We left the room, and if it weren't for my intrinsic obsessive-compulsiveness about checking the door one last time, I'd never
have seen the postscript written on our sign.

"And screwing like crazed rabbits."

The writing was Frohike's.

Between that and Neil Diamond, he was a dead man.

But not until we got back.
 

The airport in Baltimore was crowded. I was still exhausted, and leaned up against Langly as we waited in line to check in. We were scheduled to fly to Miami first, then to Manzanillo.

"You know what the first thing they do when you to a hotel in Mexico is?" I asked him sleepily.

"What?"

"They give you a margarita."

He looked pained. "And if you refuse?"

"They shoot you."
 

"Finally." Langly stretched as our flight was announced for boarding. I'd fallen asleep on his shoulder in the meantime, which meant no rousing competition of 'You Don't Know Jack' to pass the time.

I was feeling a lot better now. "Hey, Langly baby. Do you belong to the Mile High Club yet?"

He flashed me a wicked smile.
 

We were near the end of the line to get on, and our excitement was growing. We hate airports, and we're not all that crazy about planes, but now we were really going on our honeymoon...and it felt fantastic.

While waiting to move to the gate, I turned around, expecting to see Langly right behind me, but he'd moved to my side. If my reflexes had been any faster, I'd have missed it...

The expensively dressed man with the cigarette.
 
 

POSTSCRIPT FROM ALLY & LANGLY:

Sorry, guys, but nobody goes on the honeymoon but us. But come back later for more fun...after we get home.

THE END (BUT ONLY FOR NOW!)