blue_ajah | (no subject)

[After this.]

When she returns from Milliways, Moiraine does not stay in the apartment for any longer than it takes to cross the room and walk out the front door. Two minutes later, she is gliding down the street at a brisk pace.

All things considered, it does not take her that long to reach the sheriff's station. Lucy blinks in surprise upon seeing her.

"Hi Moiraine -- are you looking for Sheriff Truman? I mean, probably you are, since this is the sheriff's station and all, and you haven't come by just to visit before, but I don't think he's here, or at least he wasn't here before, unless of course he came back while I was making another pot of coffee and is here now, in which case he is here, and if he is here, he'd be back in his office--"

"No, thank you, Ms. Moran-- Lucy," the Aes Sedai amends hastily, as Lucy opens her mouth again. "As it happens, I am seeking Dale Cooper; do you know where he might be found at present?"

"Well, he might be here too, except I don't think he is, unless--"

"Do you have some means of locating him?"

Mere moments later, the dispatch radio crackles to life.

"...Agent Cooper?"

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"You're not."

He's not guessing why she called: he doesn't have to. There isn't anyone else -- Harry, certainly, Harry who is steadfast and kind and ruthlessly creative; Harry who works best when you can meet him on his own level.

This goes a little beyond the pale.

Milliways presents its own challenges. Its own temptations.

Cooper exhales again, and straightens, feeling the wood press against his back. "Do you want to talk about it more?"

"I think perhaps that I should, but I am not entirely certain how to begin," she replies.

"Why didn't you stay in Milliways?"

The question is out before he's thought about it too much.

Dark eyes widen, very slightly.

"What do you mean?"

"It would be easier for you to get information, wouldn't it?"

"I believe," she says, carefully, "that I have enough for the moment; all that is or may be known just now, in the aftermath of battle."

"There will be time to find out more."

Cooper breaks into a sudden smile -- one approaching broad, for him.

"That's a good thing. That there's time."

"It is, is it not?"

Her answering smile is slight, but real.

"Thank the Light."

It's a nice afternoon.

He lets himself take a few seconds to enjoy it.

And also -- to let Moiraine assemble any thoughts. It's an old technique: remain silent, and what people say to fill the vacuum says more than they might think.

"There will be time for many things there, now," she says, eventually.

"And peace, as well."

He shifts on the bench -- turns his attention more directly toward her -- and doesn't say anything. Not yet.

Silence descends again, as her thoughts turn inward.

Somewhere, in the quiet, a bird calls.

"And here?"

A good two minutes later.

"I had thought to begin my new work by collecting stories of this town and its people," she says, perhaps misunderstanding him.

Or perhaps not.

"Pete Martell, for one, has been very encouraging of the idea that someone might write a history of Twin Peaks."

A pause, as she looks down at her ring once more.

"Vandene would approve, I think."

Despite her accustomed control in manner and tone, there is no mistaking the timbre of grief, of loss, in her voice.

There's no mistaking it, no. Perhaps especially not if you're Dale Cooper. Not in this town, in this place.

"Vandene."

It's a question, a mild one.

"Vandene--"

She wills her voice not to break, with some success, but the slight catch is still audible.

"She was a sister. Of the Green."

A pause.

"An historian, in her way, for all that she did not choose Brown. And a friend."

"A friend," he echoes, knowing how rarely Moiraine bestows the phrase; knowing also that the past tense is part of no word that is not true.

"You had several things in common."

"Once," she agrees.

"And then..."

"I have not seen her since before the series of events that first brought me to Milliways," Moiraine says, very steadily.

"She will have believed me dead, after that. Most did, and still do. It was necessary that it be so."

A pause.

"I suppose it only fair, in a sense, that I now endure what she likely felt, then."

Cooper shifts on the bench and exhales, long and slow.

"That implies," he says, "that you think you owe a debt."

She shakes her head.

"No. It is not the sort of thing that could be repaid, in any case, and so. Consider it more of an acknowledgment."

A small, wry smile.

"All things are part of the Pattern."

"Maybe." Cooper shakes his head. "But I don't believe it keeps score, Moiraine."

"Perhaps not." She shrugs, very slightly. "Be that as it may."

"Vandene is happy now, Light willing, sheltered together with Adeleas in the Creator's palm."

"And you're not."

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