blue_ajah | (no subject)

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She wakes early enough that it is still full dark outside, although the first stirrings of birds hint at the dawn to come.

Some few minutes later, Moiraine is seated at the small table in her kitchen, a cup of tea steaming untouched near to hand as she looks out the window, watching the trees and waiting for enough time to pass that she can make a phone call without waking the person she wishes to reach... and without disturbing his morning meditation session.

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"Moiraine," Cooper says as he steps in. "I hope you had a pleasant day."

"It was not unpleasant, to be certain," she agrees. "And as the Major caught three fish, I believe it was pleasant for him as well."

She closes the door and turns back to him.

"I hope the same is true for you, as well?" A faint flicker of a smile touches the corner of her mouth. "Regarding the day, that is, not the fish."

"No fish," Cooper agrees. "But pleasant enough."

Besides the fire, the DV call, the conference call, and the paperwork. (All of it, in other words.)

"I am glad to hear it."

She indicates the small sofa and the armchair near it with a tilt of her head and a questioning look.

Cooper nods, and goes for the corner of the sofa.

Taking a seat: "I didn't expect my day to start out the way it did, Moiraine." There's apology in his tone. "I'm... frankly still trying to mentally encompass what happened."

She chooses the armchair, and sinks gracefully into it. Moiraine spends a moment arranging her skirts, then inclines her head to him in acknowledgement.

"I know; you had no reason to expect anything of the sort," she says, quietly. "I am sorry for surprising you so, and so early in the day."

"You seemed unsettled."

Cooper is calm.

"In light of that, I'm glad you called."

"I was."

A single beat.

"My teachers in the White Tower would almost certainly have disapproved."

"With respect to your teachers, Moiraine," Cooper says, "it seems unlikely that they've gone through what you've gone through."

She gives a very slight shrug.

"Be that as it may."

After a moment:

"Why did you bring up your teachers, Moiraine?"

Moiraine blinks at that, and then allows a slight smile to curve her lips.

"You need not be concerned that it is part of the Great Game, Dale. I am not playing Daes Dae'mar with you here."

"It was merely an observation that I know to be true."

"Certainly," Cooper agrees. "But coming on the heels of the discussion we had this morning... Moiraine, I have to ask." And that's spoken gently. "Do you think you're a woman out of your world and time?"

There is an instant's silence, but only that, before she answers him.

"I have been since I first set foot in Milliways. It is something I have become accustomed to over the years since that moment."

"You seem to assign a particular weight to that, though. And you know that I'm your friend. You call. I come. To me -- it doesn't matter, except as it affects your happiness here. But it matters to you. And it suddenly matters more after you find out that you'll be seeing your ex-husband more often. And now you're underscoring your difference by talking about what your teachers would think of you."

Cooper is speaking quietly and evenly. His hands are clasped in his lap as he leans forward, elbows resting on his knees.

"Moiraine, I think your feeling is real. I know mine is. And I know you're not playing any Game of Houses with me. But I worry about what the timing means."

She is very still, and her gaze is steady on his.

"I see," she murmurs.

"What troubles you about the timing?"

"That it might be to your advantage to be romantically unavailable when you see Morpheus in Milliways," Cooper says.

No reason to pull punches.

The only visible signs of her shock are in the slight widening of her eyes, in the way that they darken and in the way that her complexion goes suddenly pale.

Other than that, she remains as still as before, as if she were in truth the delicate porcelain doll she has been called over the years.

"Is that what you think of me? That I could be so cruel as to use you so?"

Try though she might, she cannot keep the slight shiver from her words.

It is either very good or very bad that Cooper was expecting a reaction like that.

Either way, he has his answer ready. "No," Cooper says. "Not at all. And I don't think it's cruel, either. Simply... convenient." Beat. "Moiraine, we've gone this long without talking about any kind of non-platonic feeling between us, and we both seem to have strong feelings about your ex-husband. That you said something only this morning..." Cooper's shaking his head a little. "The timing is... strange. And I don't think it's cruel. If that's why you said something... I'm fine with that. I just want to know."

It hasn't escaped Cooper that Moiraine hasn't denied it.

"I put off speaking because I believed that I should."

Dimly, in a far corner of her memory, she can almost see the words that she had once written in a letter.

I have put this off because I knew that I must, and now there is little time...

A slight sigh escapes her.

"I suppose that I should not be surprised, that you have perceived it so. Indeed, I can see how you would. And I suppose that I have done crueler things, as it happens, when there was need enough. I have always been as hard as I have had to be."

She smooths her hand along the lines of her skirt, and shifts slightly, prepared to stand.

"But no. I did not speak out of convenience, nor to seek such advantage. Light blind and burn me, if I were to have done such a thing in this instance."

For all their sakes.

"I don't think it's unreasonable," he says. (His workday lurks at the back of his mind.) "I don't think it makes you hard. But since that's not why you did it, I don't think pursuing this is going to do any good."

A pause.

"Can I ask why you believed you should put it off?"

She raises her chin, and looks him in the eye.

"Because you did not seem interested, when I sought to hint at it, and I did not wish to place you in any sort of uncomfortable position, when I was a guest in your town and your world."

The Aes Sedai lets that hang between them for a brief beat, then asks,

"Why did you not speak, Dale?"

Well.

They're not pulling any punches.

"There are two reasons," Cooper says. "The first is Dream of the Endless. The second is not only that were you a guest in Twin Peaks, but also that for the first eight months of your time here, you were either my guest, or in a tenuous position in terms of your employment, which was dependent on the good will of my best friend -- both facts that escaped neither of us. Under those circumstances, I thought it would be unethical to say something, since you may well have felt pressured to respond in a way that you thought would be in accordance with my desires rather than your own."

Cooper is shaking his head slowly. "I didn't want that, Moiraine."

"I see."

Her soft voice is much gentler now than it had been the last time she said those two words.

"And now?"

"And now there's only one reason."