(no subject)

[tibetanmethod]

Heidi is working the night shift tonight, as she has been for the last several weeks. Norma Jennings is in Brazil, and that means that Shelly -- Norma's second in command at the Double R Diner -- needs to be around during the day.

She looks up as the bell on the door jingles; Cooper is holding it open for Moiraine. He gestures to a booth on the lefthand side, and they take a seat.

When Heidi makes her way over, Cooper and Moiraine find out that today is a special on cherry pie, since cherries are in season. Also, there is peanut butter.

Cooper leans forward and says to Moiraine, very confidentially, "I recommend the cherry."

Comments

[blue_ajah]

"It would seem quite likely," she agrees, and holds off on saying anything more until they are both seated in the car and the engine is running.

Moiraine is looking through the windshield at the cabin, very intently.

"It is the connection between the absence of her log and the presence of her companion that interests me."

[tibetanmethod]

"Her log saw things." Cooper puts the car in reverse, and begins to turn it around. "We know that much. And the things it saw -- the meaning was veiled, but the core of it -- it was always right."

"Fire. In the woods."

[blue_ajah]

"'In Xanadu did Kublai Khan,'" she murmurs.

A pause.

"One wonders what exactly he encountered in those woods to begin with. And where."

She glances sideways at him, considering.

[tibetanmethod]

Cooper puts the car in drive.

The car begins to move down the road.


"It was an opium dream." Abrupt. "A hallucination brought on by drugs. Assuming Coleridge was telling the truth about the origins of the poem. He was -- assisted."

[blue_ajah]

"Assisted," Moiraine repeats.

Her tone is perfectly neutral.

[tibetanmethod]

"I think that's an apt way to describe it." Cooper is slipping into FBI Voice again. "It's one of the most well-known poems in the English language. And assistance isn't always benign."

[blue_ajah]

"No," she says quietly. "No, it is not."

A pause.

"There is something I must do, Dale. Something I need to discern. Pull the car over, at a safe place."

[tibetanmethod]

It's dark inside the car.

And silent.

Cooper's jaw tightens.



He pulls the car out onto Route 21. When they get to the bridge over the Columbia River, he pulls to the side of the road before they cross, and puts the car into park.

Very quiet, and very calm: "Will you explain it to me?"

[blue_ajah]

"I will."

Quietly.

"And it will not hurt, in any case, I believe."

That much, she can be certain of. No matter what.

Moiraine holds out both hands to him, waiting.

"I wish to Delve; to see if you have been... affected... by the manner of your return here in light of what else is happening."

[tibetanmethod]

Cooper opens his mouth. Closes it.

There are times when he's all too aware of all the things he can't do, that he wishes he could do, for the protection of the people around him. There have been times recently when he's been a danger to the people around him, without knowing.

(Dale Cooper learned at a very young age that he isn't invincible, or omnipotent, or omniscient.

Sometimes -- sometimes -- the lesson doesn't stick.)

No word that is not true.


Cooper gives Moiraine his hands.

[blue_ajah]

"It will not hurt," she repeats softly, closing her fingers over his as a dim golden light blossoms about her.

Not as bright as it would be in the bar, still in Twin Peaks it is faintly visible all the same. Silver threads spiral from her fingertips, racing over him like a wave with the lightness and delicateness of spider's silk as she studies him intently.

Several moments pass before a small smile curves her lips. Moiraine opens her hands to allow him to pull away, while the aura around her fades.

"You have not been tainted." As soft as before, but utterly certain.

[tibetanmethod]

Cooper looks out at the river. Down at the gear shift.

"What would have done the tainting?"

[blue_ajah]

"It is difficult to say precisely," she murmurs.

Her smile is gone, now, and dark eyes are shadowed as she watches him.

"But the Dark One is the Lord of the Grave, and you yourself mentioned certain associations with necromancy. I ... feared ... that given the circumstances of your last arrival at the bar prior to your return here, and the presence now of those who live and walk where they once had died..."

Moiraine trails off there before murmuring,

"I am glad to find otherwise."

[tibetanmethod]

"You thought I was dead."

[blue_ajah]

Very carefully,

"It did not seem likely, given your frequent absences from the bar without evident difficulty."

"I merely wished to be certain."

[tibetanmethod]

(I'd prefer not to die, if it's at all avoidable.)

Somebody else might get snappish right now. Might start asking if there was any behavioral pattern she'd noticed that would shore up that hypothesis -- if, in short, he's acting dead.

Or crazy.

(He's not crazy, he had her listen to the tape with him, she knows he's not acting like Leland did, like the Log Lady's husband did.

He's not.)

"How much danger is Harry in?"

[blue_ajah]

"I do not yet know."

Moiraine sighs, and glances out the window at the road. "To better answer that, I suspect, I would need to see Josie Packard, or perhaps one of the others--"

There is a distinct pause, in which she continues to stare out at the dark.

"-- or to visit Glastonberry Grove."

[tibetanmethod]

Utter silence.





"Please don't ask me to take you there."

"Not at night, and not without backup."

[blue_ajah]

"No."

Her tone is calm, and not unkind. Moiraine turns back to Cooper, meeting his gaze directly.

"I will not."

A breath, and then, "I suspect that would not be the wisest idea, in any case. I would not want to go there unprepared."

[tibetanmethod]

"No."

Even. Steely.

"You really wouldn't."

He starts the car again.

[blue_ajah]

The tone of his voice is hard and level, and she does not disagree. Moiraine says nothing.

And so, for a time, all is silent--
in the halls
--save for the sounds of the engine, of the tires passing over the road, of the air whistling softly past the car as it moves.

While Cooper drives, she looks out at the darkness, watching the inky shadows of trees against the night.