blue_ajah | (no subject)

She stays where she is, a small woman, poised in demeanor, watching him carefully.

"Perhaps it would be better to ask, does that bother you?"

"No." Cooper's answer is immediate and sincere. "Why would it?"

A small gasp of a laugh escapes her, but there is no humor in it.

"Why would it, indeed."

Cooper knows Moiraine's rules.

"Why would you think it would?"

He's got to be better about that.

"It is not that I think it would, it is that I fear it might."

She turns away, back toward the table, and stands beside it looking out the window.

"I do not think that Morpheus's presence in Tel'aran'rhiod here in this fashion tonight will have caused any detriment to Twin Peaks," she says, finally. "You need not be concerned for that."

To recap:

Cooper received a phone call from Moiraine just past five o'clock in the morning, with details she didn't want to get into on the phone, and when he showed up at her house she told him before he had his coffee that she was talking to the ex-husband who, in one aspect, did its damndest to ruin his life from childhood -- and then she began to speak cryptically about her own status in Twin Peaks. And then she turned away from him.

Dale Cooper is a patient man.

"But you want to leave."

With him.

"No!"

At this she whirls, the motion still graceful even in its speed, and stares at him with shock clear in the dark eyes.

"No," she says again, after an instant's startled silence. "No, Dale. I do not want to leave."

"I want to stay." Another breath, and she elaborates, very clearly:

"I want you to want me to stay."

And that's the thing. He can't assume -- he has never been able to assume -- that a declaration like that means what he thinks it means. What it might mean. What it could mean.

Because there have been hurdles and there have been barriers, the first and foremost being that for quite some time, Moiraine was under his care, or in some way his responsibility. She stayed in his apartment. She worked as the dispatcher at the station. It would have been deeply unethical -- immoral -- to say or do or think anything. And even if that barrier no longer exists -- and it doesn't, because Moiraine has her own job that has nothing to do with Twin Peaks law enforcement, and her own living space, and she isn't dependent on him any more --

There's still the small matter of the ex-husband.

This town has a bad history of marriages gone poorly, and new flames snuffed.

Not to mention Cooper's own history.

And Dale Cooper cannot, must not assume.

And yet --

"Of course I want you to stay," Cooper says, holding very, very still. "You've built a life here."

She clasps her hands together in front of her at her waist, tightly.

"Is that the only reason?"

It is not even six o'clock in the morning. Dale Cooper is two sips of coffee in for the day.

This is extremely unfair.

"What do you want me to say, Moiraine?" Only now does his voice take on a glimmer of frustration. "What are you trying to make me say?"

"Nothing that you do not wish to."

She lowers her hands to her sides again.

"I do not want to impose. Or to presume. But I thought that, that perhaps you might..."

She breaks off there, her color heightened once more.

Cooper's mouth flattens.

"Moiraine, I can't read your mind. You asked me to come and I came. What do you want me to say? Or what are you trying to say?"

So much for avoiding heightened anxiety.

Softly, very softly,

"I asked you to come, and you came. Yes. You always have, Dale; do not think I have not noticed. Whenever I have needed you, you have been there. And so this morning, I called, because I could trust that you would come. And I was ... shaken, which is part of it, but it is more than that."

Slowly, all unaware, her hands have begun to smooth down the creases of her dress, as though in some nervous habit rarely seen.

"I do not want to lose you, Dale. I am afraid that with this news, I might. That you might... might turn away from me, because -- "

A single breath. Her flush is brighter now, but she continues all the same.

"And I care for you. Surely you must have suspected that? At least a little?"

Cooper is frozen, for a moment.

Then, very slowly, he puts down his coffee mug on the counter.

And says, quietly, "At least a little. Yes."

This conversation is not happening.

"What did he tell you, Moiraine, that we're having this conversation right now?"

She shakes her head, very slightly.

"Your life here... it is satisfactory?"

"He was not aware of Tarmon Gai'don, for one. That it had come to pass."

"What does that have to do with what you just asked me?"

"More than you may think. Almost no one expected me to survive it."

Her words are soft as falling snow.

"I set aside thoughts of the future, of chances that might be or could have been, and devoted my self and my life to the Dragon Reborn. I never allowed myself to look toward what might lie beyond that. In a sense, I have still refrained from doing so, even after, in ways that matter very much. When Morpheus asked... I realized the pattern I had fallen into. The Wheel weaves."

Moiraine straightens her shoulders; her chin lifts just a bit, and dark eyes meet his.

"Perhaps I should not have called, or at least waited until later, but..." She shrugs, very slightly. "Or spoken sooner. Nevertheless. If you do not -- I will understand, Dale, I promise. Nothing need change."

There's a part of Dale Cooper that absolutely cannot process what just happened, and that's the part that wants to ask, How could you feel that way, knowing what happens to the women I love?

Fortunately, the logical part is still in operation. "You told him," he says slowly, "that he was welcome to return to Milliways. Where you still go. Where presumably you'll see him. Why would you say this to me now -- what are you planning to do?"

"Presumably I will, in time. I expect that I shall. As I do others of my friends and acquaintances. Nothing more."

Her tone is composed, but someone who knows the Aes Sedai well enough to see the subtle signs might well realize that inwardly she is anything but.

"I told you because I wanted you to know. I am not planning to do anything other than what I have just done."

Silence.

"So you don't think," Cooper says, "that he's going to... remain possessive. Do you?"

"No," she says, quietly -- but without hesitation. "I do not."

"Even if someone -- if the other party has his own bad history with the entity called Dream of the Endless."

Cooper's voice is not entirely even on the last few words.

She closes her eyes briefly, remembering, and then meets his gaze once more.

"Even then."

"What makes you so sure?"

"I believe," she says, with careful deliberation, "if he intended to be ... possessive, he would not have offered to depart if I did not wish to speak."

"He would not have offered to leave Milliways as it currently is, if I were to be... troubled... by his renewed presence there."

Her fingers are trembling. She flattens them against the fabric of her dress.

"He would not have asked if I was satisfied with my life here, and accepted my answer."