Dale Cooper (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tapestodiane) wrote2012-12-03 12:49 am
tapestodiane) wrote2012-12-03 12:49 am
032 - action/audio
Sometimes, being right isn't all that gratifying. In actuality, it can be devastating, especially if there's bad thing coming. Cooper wouldn't claim to have foreseen what would happen during those days; in fact, won't claim to be able to foresee anything. But he'd had a feeling, had been bracing himself, and yet he'd been completely unprepared for what happened and the things he saw.
"I don't know what to do", he tells his audio recorder (not Diane) later in the day, voice uncharacteristically choked. It's the simple truth in light of everything he can recall - actually recall, not just piece together, and that alone is worrying in a whole new way.
He's trying not to think about all that, not yet. And for the next few days he's still trying to clear his mind, even if his motions are distracted and his focus is shaky and his thoughts are stubborn and loud. Whatever is happening, it's escalating, but he feels powerless when it comes to stopping it or even figuring it out.
He wouldn't even assume he had the right question to ask, were he given the chance for an answer.
[Action for Justice Farm: When he wakes up the day he'd normally have been (mostly) mind-wiped, he's still exhausted. Most days will find him in the kitchen with his hands around a coffee cup and none of the usual enthusiasm for the beverage inside, staring distantly out the window with the look of someone who hasn't slept at all. It's a change from his usual demeanor, but whatever is going on in his mind, he doesn't seem all that inclined to share.]
[Audio, for the network, backdated to the 29th:] I'll keep it brief: who else can recall this weekend with a lot more clarity than the previous ones of its kind?
[Action for Saffron: He's around, so feel free to bump into him. He's been on quite a few walks lately. Walks are good.]
(KIND OF BACKDATED and spans all days from 4th wall end til like yesterday, so feel free to bump in with whatever, whenever!)
"I don't know what to do", he tells his audio recorder (not Diane) later in the day, voice uncharacteristically choked. It's the simple truth in light of everything he can recall - actually recall, not just piece together, and that alone is worrying in a whole new way.
He's trying not to think about all that, not yet. And for the next few days he's still trying to clear his mind, even if his motions are distracted and his focus is shaky and his thoughts are stubborn and loud. Whatever is happening, it's escalating, but he feels powerless when it comes to stopping it or even figuring it out.
He wouldn't even assume he had the right question to ask, were he given the chance for an answer.
[Action for Justice Farm: When he wakes up the day he'd normally have been (mostly) mind-wiped, he's still exhausted. Most days will find him in the kitchen with his hands around a coffee cup and none of the usual enthusiasm for the beverage inside, staring distantly out the window with the look of someone who hasn't slept at all. It's a change from his usual demeanor, but whatever is going on in his mind, he doesn't seem all that inclined to share.]
[Audio, for the network, backdated to the 29th:] I'll keep it brief: who else can recall this weekend with a lot more clarity than the previous ones of its kind?
[Action for Saffron: He's around, so feel free to bump into him. He's been on quite a few walks lately. Walks are good.]
(KIND OF BACKDATED and spans all days from 4th wall end til like yesterday, so feel free to bump in with whatever, whenever!)
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But once they're settled, she doesn't waste time with hesitation, either. The words may be quiet, careful, but they're not weak or uncertain by any means.]
I was out. It always seems I'm...out, days like that. At least, I have been both times it's happened. [It's a delicate way of saying she had a heist on her mind; she's not about to deny it, but that's another debate entirely, and not one they need to get into now.] You — no. He was there, but I could tell it wasn't you. I just...knew.
[She presses her lips together slightly, a little put off at that. Intuition is fine, but she feels as though she ought to have a better explanation than the only one she does.]
He asked about you. That isn't how I knew the difference; I knew it before then, already. But he was...curious. About you. And me.
[And now she does slow down, more careful — not scared, not shaken, but there's an odd and hollow way the memory reflects around her eyes.]
He told me to be careful. And then —
[Her brow furrows and she shakes her head slightly, her gaze turning down to the floor beside her as she tries to recall something that isn't quite there. She knows what she saw — but where are the words to capture it?]
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[Her trailing off doesn't help, either, and he squeezes her hands in his, but it's more for his own comfort than hers. He swallows - his mouth has gone dry - as he looks down as well for a moment.]
[But when he looks up again he's scared and intense when he searches for her eyes, his own shiny and wide and urgent.]
Carmen, [And he has to clear his throat,] did he- did he say anything about fire? About burning?
[Loaded and significant and if she says yes, then ...]
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(Calm. She's calm. It's not normal for her to be so affected by someone else's distress — but then, it's not particularly usual for her in the first place, the relationship she has with him.)
She thinks carefully back, tracing the lines of memory as best she can remember, letting her focus drift to a point far away — a sharp contrast to how intently he's still watching her.]
No. He knew things about me, but he didn't know that. It was only things you would've known.
[Which is still a remark loaded and significant, perhaps, but not in the way he's expecting.]
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[There's a hand over his mouth again, briefly, then through his hair and of course there's still fire in the picture.]
What kind of fire?
[Still low, very much between them, quiet but no less intense.]
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A person can't go for long, seeing and doing the things we do, without facing down at least one run through fire.
She's had several, herself. Some were at the hands of madmen who would've liked nothing more than to see her go down in flames. But one...]
The headmistress told me I smelled like smoke, when the policeman found me on the streets of San Francisco. And I remember fire. More than that...
[She shakes her head, tipping her head back to rest against the wall behind her.]
It's the earliest memory I have, and even that much is fuzzy at best.
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[There's something frantic in his eyes when he thinks about it, wonders if that's how her parents disappeared - dead? missing? - and what kind of marks it would have left on her. He remembers the locket around her neck, of course, but that's not it, not quite ...]
[Instead, a note written in blood presents itself at the forefront of his mind. And distantly there's an echo of Heather saying something about fire being a thing.]
I don't know what it means. Fire, destruction, ruin ... sometimes passion, but just the passion for chaos alone-- but that's what he is.
[Whatever he just figured out, he's not explaining it, but he's still looking at her as he speaks.]
It doesn't fit.
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She shakes her head, frees a hand, and reaches out to snap her fingers in front of his face, a reasonable but short distance from his nose.]
You did this the last time, when it was your old partner we were talking about. If it's important enough to make you worry about me, it's important enough to warrant telling me more than just the bits and pieces you think it's safe for me to know.
[She remarks, following it up with a light brush of her knuckle over the curve of his cheek.]
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[But it makes him stop and try to focus, which helps the way he's riling himself up.]
There are more things in the world than we realize. [He says it after a moment, softer than before, but still with a faint split to his voice.] When things happen that we can't explain ... sometimes that's my job. To find the reason.
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[She quotes it back just as softly, still watching, still intent on keeping him grounded. That's what it seems to have come down to, at this point; that once again, just like before she came in, he's tempted to drift away on his own thoughts, and she's the only one holding him down to make sure he stays where he ought to.
And what a reversal that is, isn't it — that for once, he's the one slipping away, and she's the one pursuing.]
You can't think my past has something to do with what I saw.
action;
I don't know. Fire is a pattern. I'm trying to figure it out.
[BOB would have known, wouldn't he? About the fire, would have taunted her, flaunted it. But there's still the possibility that it's him, that Carmen just might not remember. He hopes desperately that it isn't, because the idea that BOB might find him in the end, use him? It's something he doesn't even want to consider.]
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[Whatever he's thinking, even if there is some significance there, the most it can be is a coincidence, can't it? To suggest that it's more — that would mean that even her earliest memory was the product of some greater design, one calculated to someday bring her to where she is now, to Johto, to him...
The very thought makes her stomach twist in disgust. It was terrible enough when it was Maelstrom, calling her a thief at heart, placing the doubt in her mind that perhaps the path she walks now was one she was meant for all along. It's a hundred times worse to think that something else's plan started long before that.]
There's no way whoever — whatever — it was could've known.
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No, that's not what I'm talking about. If he didn't know, he's different. Something else. Something unknown.
[If it's a comfort, it's only to a certain degree. It had still struck fear to his very core, just that brief meeting, the smile, the touch on his face - and no matter how many times he recalls it he can't help but feel cold.]
[And yet he can't be sure that it wasn't actually him.]
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But it's not, perhaps, a surprising one. Not when she found herself at such a loss, faced with the sight of him in cloaked despair. Not when talking meant recalling what rattled her so much in that awful moment a few days ago. Not when the words turned out to be crowbars, prying open a part of herself that she's never voiced to anyone before. It's so strange to feel like this, so different from the norm. She doesn't like it. And yet in a way, she almost doesn't think she can help it, either.
This is, perhaps, what getting involved feels like.
She shifts, half-reaching for him, suddenly struck with the urge to pull him in next to her for the warmth and proximity of someone at her side (and why does she want that, what a change from someone so used to maintaining the healthy distance of a head start) — but then stops, and doesn't.
No. They're together, and that's enough. That one further step — no. She doesn't want to find out how much further she might open up, if she gives him the chance to cause it.]
What about the one you saw?
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["The one" he saw ... interesting how it's one out of several things. Just by semantics, it's something he isn't. He appreciates that, will cling to it, just a bit. But he finds it difficult to talk about, put into words.]
He could be the same.
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There was an animal lurking behind that one's eyes, she thinks with a chill she carefully suppresses. And maybe there's one lurking behind her detective's eyes, too, but they're far from one and the same.
She's called him Rabbit before. It's proving more and more apt with every passing moment.]
Was he what caused the birds?
[It's the natural assumption, considering.]
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[He doesn't. If he was, then that puts a worrying spin on a lot of things, but if not ... it seems more likely that he'd just wandered into the dream, or it had found him.]
[But the cause- that would be his mother, wouldn't it? It's what he'd thought, his gut reaction, but that is the one thing he doesn't want to talk about or can bring himself to share.]
[Instead he just looks pained.]
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[Because you were happy, she thinks briefly. Because I had no reason to even think of doubting your face. Because, because...
She breathes in slow, tipping her head to regard him for a moment as she debates how much more to press. You should always ask questions when there's something you want to know. But she also knows there's a line between helping someone cope by talking about it and hurting them by forcing them to relive it.]
Did you shoot him?
[It's not an unreasonable assumption to make, not when she plays it out in her mind. The gun was there. He's a trained lawman; he's accepted a different set of inevitabilities than her own personal code. And perhaps taking a life on one of the few days in Johto when it would make the most difference would end up crushing him like this. The shock of doing it to someone with his own face...
She doesn't know. Maybe she's wrong. But things could add up that way, and either way, there are cracks beginning to split between them that will never be bridged until he lets her know what happened to render him like this.]
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[It's perhaps a surprising admission from someone like Coop, who cares so very much about people at large, not to mention doing the Right Thing. At the same time the answer is understandable because the circumstances couldn't be called normal by any stretch of the word - but it's more in his tone of voice. It's not regret or wishful thinking so much as a quietly presented fact.]
[There's all kind of interesting analysis to be made with that, isn't there? But there'd been something so utterly, fundamentally wrong in him (the other him) that he should have done something to stop.]
[Instead he'd found staring his own fear in the face too difficult to cope with.]
[And along with a haunted, hollow feeling, that's where the regret lies.]
action;
Something catches in her throat. It's hard to breathe, for a minute, because there's a lump there now that wasn't a moment ago and she can't seem to get it down. Four simple words and her eyes feel hot and this time she gives in to the urge to curl inward, drawing her knees up, bringing her shoulders down. She's pressing her lips together because she can feel them quivering, and even with the pressure she's applying, she can't completely suppress the movement at the corners of her mouth.
It's so wrong, the words, the tone, that she almost wants to shove herself up and escape — and she doesn't because she knows all too well that if she does, he'll let her go, and blame himself for that, too.
So instead she simply yanks off one of her gloves and presses her hand to her face, trying to anchor herself to the memory of Suhara's voice and failing rather badly as the situation sends her emotions reeling.]
Don't say that.
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[He's seen her vulnerable a few times before. Remembers in particular being called something missing when she had a hand curled into his jacket and he had his arms around her. This is different, and he only now really notices the physical distance between them with the way she purposefully or not is actually shielding herself from him.]
[And that hurts. It really does. He opens his mouth like he might protest, her expression or words or anything, but he swallows it and moves to reach out to her but doesn't quite finish the gesture.]
[He has a pretty good idea of what's wrong, but not what is wrong here, with this, between them and what it was that made her react so strongly.]
[He's seen her vulnerable before, but this isn't quite that. Not this kind of pain in her eyes, the way she's more visibly upset than he's ever known her to be.]
[He's never seen her cry, either. It's painful to realize that he just might.]
Carmen ...
[He hesitates, but then does touch her arm, shifts to regain some of that distance.]
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Confucius.
Suhara.
I bend and do not break.
Jean de La Fontaine.
Suhara.
She brings her hand down from her face and uses it to take his, instead. Her fingers are less graceful than usual as she entwines them with his, but her hand is dry and warm.]
I'm not losing you. Not to Johto, not to whatever you saw. And not to yourself.
[She breathes in, lets it out. That which bends, Carmen. The oak is mighty but the green reed survives the storm.
She looks down at their hands, then up to meet his eyes, blinking until the sting recedes.]
Figuring out what to do might be a journey of a thousand miles, detective.
[The reed bows to the storm. But it rises to stand tall again.]
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[To yourself ... it seems doubly appropriate now, doesn't it? It's a weird feeling he can't place, something at the back of his neck like being watched, that maybe he's lost already. But he'd like to believe that isn't the truth. And her determination, which might be rattled now but no less true to her character, the certainty she wills into those words: it's not exactly soothing, no. But it touches him.]
[Maybe that's enough, for the moment. To know that she's there.]
[He breathes in and tugs their joined hands gently towards him to press a light kiss to her knuckles in silent gratitude for that.]
[It means something.]
[The quote does, too, and there's a surprised - if weak - momentary smile when he looks up at her. He doesn't look much better, but maybe no quite so lost.]
I can't ask you to take those steps with me.
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There's a young man in him, too, beneath the fears and ordeals, the cases closed and the regrets still lingering.
And there is a time for the two of them, the thief and the agent, the fearless and the fearful, the mender and the martyr — but here, now, like this, it's time for just the two of them, holding hands in a quiet room an untold distance from anything either of them might call home, bridging worlds and crises and conflicts for the sake of staying together.
His doppelganger had asked her a question.
It's in the moment when his lips touch her hand that she thinks for the first time that she might know the answer.]
Then it's a good thing you don't have to.
[She shifts at last, uncurling, and moves to nudge against his side — there, undeniably close, and he can hold her if he chooses. But either way she's there, and will be, and in the end that's maybe all that matters.]
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