tibetanmethod

Sarah Palmer's been through a lot. A lot.

(In Twin Peaks, Dr. Jacobi knocking on the door of the Palmer house. No one is answering. Eventually, he breaks down the door. The power's out--so why's that fan going?

He moves through the house, expecting--almost anything. A corpse, more than likely, with a knife or a gun or a bottle of pills. Not a white horse, though.

There's a shower of sparks, and the ceiling fan snaps loose from the ceiling and crashes down the stairwell; he leaps to one side just in time.

When he gets back up, there's no horse, and he never, ever speaks of it.)

It's not really a choice.

**************

"Sarah?" Ben calls. "Ungh." He shifts Cooper's bulk. "Sarah!"

He knows what he saw, in that brief moment. And somehow--he thinks he won't be seeing Sarah Palmer again.

From:

The noise is enough to stir Cooper, and --

Red curtains.

Black and white floor.

...Benjamin Horne. And nobody else.

"All roads lead to Rome," he murmurs. "And all doors -- "

"Hello, Mr. Horne."

From:

"So you're awake." Only Ben Horne can be snippy in the Black Lodge. "I should've known you'd be involved in this somewhere."

From:

Cooper straightens, awkwardly, and brushes off his sleeves. "Who else." Absently. "Is anybody else here? Do you know?"

He feels...empty. Cleansed. Serene.

Unafraid.

From:

"I was in Deer Meadow with Sarah Palmer," Ben says. "We went to talk to a one-armed shoesalesman about some of Leland's money. It was a crazy story." He shakes his head.

"Then the sheriff kidnapped us, and took us... somewhere."

"This is all crazy."

From:

"And you haven't seen Harry." Beat. "Or Josie Packard."

"Or Leland."

He's taking steps, trying to part the curtains; they won't move.

From:

"I saw Leland. Sarah's with him. Him and..."

"Laura." He sounds like he can't believe what he's saying.

From:

Cooper stills.

"It worked," he says to the curtains, softly. "How about that."

(A memory, half-felt, half-sensed: do unto others as you would have done unto you.

Laura Palmer is dead, and his hand on her shoulder, and no words spoken; just kindness.)

He turns away from the curtains. They ripple. "And Sarah -- she's...gone?"

From:

"What does she have to go back to?" Ben says quietly.

And--for all he says, that proves he believes it. He knows it's true. There's no denying the beauty of that jungle, or the horror of this place.

From:

Cooper smiles, gently, with kindness. "These are blind steps -- " He moves. " -- and gropings of our exile, the painting of our hunger as, remembering speechlessly, we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, a door. Where? When?"

He says it to the curtains again, pacing along them, looking for the way out. Over his shoulder, apologetically, "I've been reading Thomas Wolfe. It's difficult to forget." Beat. "I'm assuming you'd like to leave."

From:

"You assume correctly," Ben says, raising his eyebrows. "Which way?"

From:

"Doors open -- " He finds the parting. "There we go. Doors move two ways, Mr. Horne. And here..." He steps through, holding it open for Ben. "...is our door."

There's a corridor. "Once we get out of here -- those will be the leaves. It exits into Glastonberry Grove, and I'm assuming you've been -- "

"Harry?"

They're in the next room; Cooper has just gone through the curtains, and he's staring at a body in the middle of the room.

The body of Harry S. Truman.

From:

There's a gun, and a smashed bottle of what Harry Truman has always called the Irish.

(Flicker)

"Oh, God," Ben whispers.

From:

Cooper's face gets still. Hard.

Harry may have brought his gun.

Cooper knows he didn't bring the whiskey.

"Ben, listen to me. We're going to cross the room on a diagonal, quickly, giving him a wide berth."

"I don't think that's Harry."

And even if it is --

-- Cooper doesn't want to think about that --

-- they can't do anything for him. Not like this.

From:

He doesn't move; Ben watches him out of the corner of his eye the whole time, but he doesn't

(flicker)

move. They move through the curtains and find

(flicker)

The same room, with the same sprawling sheriff, and the same smoking gun.

Now he moves, reaching for the pistol.

From:

Without a thought he draws his gun, fast, fast as he can --

"Hands off the weapon." Sharp, implacable, and he doesn't have time to consider the very real possibility that this isn't going to work --

From:

"Nnng."

"Coop?"

From:

"Ben, the way out of here should be on the diagonal, straight across."

"Harry, sit up so we can see your eyes."

It's the best way, the only way, he knows to make sure --

His gun hasn't moved.

From:

Harry sits up.

He's not shot. There's no bottle in here.

"I tripped over something. An animal," Harry mutters. His eyes are clear. "Gun fired when it hit the ground."

From:

His eyes are clear, and his speech, it isn't --

Cooper lowers his gun. Doesn't holster it quite yet. "What kind of animal?" He takes one step forward. Another.

From:

"I didn't get a good look," Harry says, ruefully. "Something small."

"A pine weasel," Ben says.

"Maybe."

"No, look, a pine weasel."

From:

"Their territory does extend to Ghostwood," Cooper says -- and spies it. "Or so I've heard." He does holster, now, and extends a hand to help Harry up.

From:

Harry puts up his gun as well, and takes Cooper's hand.

"Yeah, but what's it doing in here?"

"Maybe it's lost, too," Ben says."

From:

"Fear and love open the doors," Cooper says, shaking his head. "The Black Lodge isn't a place that creatures can just wander into. -- it's moving."

From:

"Maybe it's a spirit," Harry says. "A spirit shaped like a pine weasel. Or the spirit of a pine weasel. Maybe we should follow it."

"Yes!" Ben says, beginning to do just that. "Either it'll lead us out, or further in, and after everything I did for these little bastards it better not be further in." He wags a finger after the tail of the pine weasel, which is snaking away between two curtains.

From: