worktodo | 011 | Saffron City

011 | Saffron City | Action;

[So here's Albert.

Since coming to Johto, Albert's seen a lot of wacky shit go down. He's seen people mutating into some kind of hideous hybrid creature from an airborne mutant virus. He's seen ledges that defy the laws of physics. He's seen dragons and dinosaurs and aliens. He's seen people who claim beyond a shadow of a doubt to be actual ponies. He's been yelled at by a teenage Viking. He's been flown all over creation on a bird with clouds for wings and carried forcibly around by a giant green sparklegrizzly and endured patently stupid roadtrips that involved caves and forests and god only knows what else. He's been taunted by ghosts. He's been assaulted with puppies. He's fallen in a really big hole.

He's survived the freaking Armageddon and still didn't let it ruin Christmas.

And now, here on the third day of this latest bout of flagrant insanity, in his quiet home in Saffron City with a brand new swimming pool sparkling in the yard and a snarling levitating three-hundred-pound flesh-eating snowflake snapping at the end of its chain near the outhouse, he is stepping outside to collect himself with a cup of coffee and a moment's peace—

...

And there is a BIG DAMN TREE TRANSPLANTED RIGHT INTO THE MIDDLE OF HIS FORMERLY PRISTINE SIDEWALK, and WHEN THE HELL DID THAT GET THERE and WHO THE HELL EVEN RIPS UP A TREE AND—

...

...

Silently, Albert sips his coffee.

Just another day in Johto, apparently.]

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[Albert doesn't drop his coffee.

He's not precisely surprised to see Coop, all things considered; he'd been surprised when he'd first put the pieces together a few days ago, garnering bits and pieces of information that added up to a startling picture when he did his job and put them all together. Harry'd seen him. A little girl with distant eyes had said he was here. He never talks to Carmen Sandiego if he can help it (and he usually can), but she would've said the same thing, probably.

The thing is, there were people here who were desperate to see Coop. Ones who were falling apart without him. What's her name, the raggedy girl with the punk crow, she was a wreck when he turned up missing. Harry's been a mess. Miss Scarlet up and disappeared and he hasn't seen the broad in months.

Albert? He's handling it okay. It's not like they're attached at the hip. They're coworkers. They see each other when they see each other, and when they don't, they don't.

It's not unusual for Coop to go off on a mystic adventure, and Albert to only catch up later. That's how they got here in the first place, isn't it? It's not like he won't catch up someday, too.

It's not like he's been handling it badly. He's just had work to do.]

It's about time you turned up, buttercup.

[But there's no work more important than this.]

Temporarily, Albert.

_{[A reminder, although he's sure Albert already knows. He's been told about these instances before and Cooper knows he's likely to have figured out what's going on already.]

[But it's also a surprisingly neat way of summarizing exactly what's going on with Coop: regret and sadness that he can't stay and the implication that he's going back to something he now has knowledge of that the others don't.]

[It's important, but the question is how much he should say about that.]

[He's mostly looking to check up on them, in all honesty.]}

But I'm happy to be here.

You always did look happier here than back there.

[Albert can do simplicity, too. It doesn't take a lot of words to speak volumes, if you know how to choose the right ones.

And he does.]

You see all your little friends?

[He's guessing yes. It'd be appropriate, somehow, if Albert were one of the last stops on the trip. That's where Albert's supposed to be — bringing up the rear, watching Coop's back. And always the one there with him, in the end.]

I was.

_{[A simple answer to an accurate observation. Their conversations have always been straightforward.]

[He nods in response to the question and seems to consider the verbal answer for a short moment before he just goes ahead and says what's on his mind.]}

I tried to provide closure as best as I could. For all of our sakes. _{[He studies Albert's face as he speaks and there's a shift in his focus - all on his coworker, now.]} I came to see you last because there are things I believe you should know. But I'm not sure whether I should actually tell them to you or let time run its course without my interference.

I told you that girl of yours'd be trouble.

[They had that discussion so long ago now, it seems. Back on his birthday, when everything had erupted because of one passing remark and one utterly brilliant kid who claimed to be a Viking. But his position hasn't changed, not really; he's never cared who Coop chose to invite into his life — not when it was Harry (okay, maybe a little bit when it was Harry), and not when it was anyone here. He cares about what it could've done to Coop, if they'd left and he'd never seen them again.

But it turns out Coop beat them all to it, didn't he. He just up and disappeared, himself, and left every single one of them wounded for it.

So yeah, leave it to Coop to go around making amends now. It makes sense. Maybe that's why this meeting in and of itself feels like a goodbye, like a funeral.]

Since when do you and I need closure, Coop?

_{[And Cooper smiles. It's the faintly sad one he's had frequently since his brief return and it's the only one that seems quite appropriate anymore, but it's there because trust Albert to both be utterly right about everything - including what he's not saying, at least not outright.]}

We don't. But I need your help.

_{[It sort of hurts him a little to say that because Albert has always, always helped him and it's unfair to ask for one more thing. But a lot depends on it. So much.]}

So talk.

[He says it in his usual Albert way, but with it comes the perpetual implication — the same one that was there years ago when all this started, when Cooper said, "a year from now you'll help me solve this case", and Albert didn't say, "you're crazy" or "there's something wrong with you" or even "not a chance"; he simply said, "let's test it, then", and put his skepticism on the line to let Coop prove him wrong — the perpetual implication that it's really irrelevant for him to say so in the first place, because saying so like that, like it's a question, suggests that there's a chance that Albert wouldn't help.

And that's stupid. It's a waste of words, and time, and sentiment.

As though Albert wouldn't help when Cooper needed it. As though he wouldn't drive half the day out into the middle of boondock nowhere because Coop found a dead girl wrapped in plastic and they all needed answers to why. As though he wasn't already three steps out the door the minute Gordon told him COOP'S BEEN SHOT before he'd even stuck around to get the details of how and when and where.

As though he wasn't sitting there agonizing for two minutes and four seconds while the machines were flatlining and his knuckles were turning white in his hands.

Like Cooper needs to ask.

Now that's a laugh.]

I'm listening.

_{[And with that there's really no question anymore as to whether or not Coop will tell him what happened. Because with Albert it stops becoming thought and becomes action - it's cut the crap and get something done.]

[That's why he needs him now. His hands are tied. He doesn't have a lot of chances because he failed the most important shot he had. And he knows, trusts, believes that Albert will do everything he can to help, and knows that he's practical enough to not hang onto false hopes or idealisms that can only get you so far, no matter the situation.]

[He regroups for only a short moment, then starts from the beginning. He speaks calmly because it's easier like that and the most reliable way to get all the information across.]}

We found the place where BOB comes from. It's a reality different from ours previously believed to only exist in local legend. Windom Earle was looking to harness its power and took a hostage to open the gateway to gain entrance - this can only be done with fear.

I entered after him, hoping to save the young woman in question and find answers.

BOB was there. He took Windom's soul and imprisoned mine.

_{[He pauses here, the memory obviously painful, and gives Albert the quietly sad look of someone who has accepted his fate for what it is.]}

[And imprisoned mine.

It's a good thing Coop pauses there, and doesn't say anything after that, because Albert wouldn't have heard it anyway. He's too busy caught up in the rush of something in his ears, and the ice water rushing in his veins.

and

imprisoned

mine

No.

Dammit, no.

His eyes are dry and that's his one saving grace, because if they were wet it'd only complete the image that's already burst to life behind them — Leland Palmer with his head bashed in, and red blood thinning pink and transparent under the jailhouse sprinklers.]

Did you go after him alone.

[Of all the questions he could've forced, strangled, out of his closed throat there, it's hard to pinpoint why precisely it's that one. Maybe it's because he already knows the answer, but at least when he gets confirmation, he'll know how to react to that.]

Yes.

_{[At least there's knowledge in that sound, because Cooper is smart enough to understand why Albert will be angry when he says it. He also knows why he would consider it foolish. There have been many times when he questioned it himself, why he would do such a thing, but the answer is always quite simple and that's because he'd been led to do it the way his intuition leads him everywhere.]

[He doesn't think it was the wrong choice to make, exactly.]

[He does believe that it was the wrong time, the wrong circumstances, that he wasn't yet prepared to face what was beyond that veil of red.]

[And he also thinks he understands how that will affect the people who care about him because he's gone to them now, even worse ... and it's his own fault.]}

You're a damn fool.

[He doesn't even think about the words; they snap like a whip crack almost before Coop has finished affirming what Albert already knew. He's had them ready, waiting in anticipation along with the anger and frustration beginning to rise up toward his shoulders within his chest.]

You didn't take anyone. You didn't take Harry.

[You didn't call me.]

Dammit, Cooper!

[You said we'd solve this one together.]

_{[Cooper takes it. Albert needs to be angry and has every right to be.]}

I didn't let him come.

_{[He's calm, perhaps strangely so, and there's no regret over his actions. In its stead there's just the sadness for how it all played out. The knowledge of his fate and the cease of that incessant pull has stopped his fidgeting, his restlessness. But that's not exactly a good sign, is it?]}

It called me, Albert. These things have before. I had to do it.

You didn't have to do anything.

[His voice is tense because what Cooper's saying, it's adding up. Things are adding up and he's always been good at putting together the nuances and tidbits like that, and suddenly it's making sense — the visions, the rock-throwing, the dances on the volcano — and for once, he doesn't want it to. He doesn't want it to make sense if the answer he's going to get is this.]

So what. You're just. You're just gone?

[Cooper.]

_{[And this is the hard part. This is what's really hard and if there's a suspicious light in Cooper's eyes it's not just a trick of the light.]

[He doesn't want to say this. But he has to, even if he'll first give what little reassurance he can give. And it's not much at all. It isn't even reassurance.]}

I'm alive in the Lodge, Albert. And I think I will always be.

_{[He pauses again before he continues.]}

But BOB has my body now. The way he had Leland's. That's where I need you, Albert. I'm sorry.

So you're telling me—

[Sum it up, Albert. Put it together. Pick up the clues, draw the inferences, paint the whole picture from the facts you've got. That's your job. That's what you do. Don't let emotions get in the way of the job.

That's what Coop's counting on you for, isn't it.]

You're telling me you went into this...place, and he got you, and now you're trapped and he's walking around wearing you like a meat suit just like—

[Leland Palmer. He hits Leland again, and all the implications start spinning out. Coop's body, danced around like Leland Palmer's was. Driven around. Manipulated. Like a puppet on a string. Defenseless.

Coop's body, doing to some girl what Leland Palmer's did to—

Jesus.]

You need me to stop you.

[Oh, he knows exactly what Coop's getting at here. Dale Cooper would never in his life ask to be rescued. That's not what this SOS is for. Not in a million years.]

Him. You.

_{[Coop lowers his eyes for a moment in silent admission to everything Albert is saying. It's also a small gesture of defeat, although not one he's giving consciously or willingly.]}

You are all in danger. The young woman taken hostage - Annie, Annie Blackburn - I kill her first. You don't suspect me because there's no reason to and all evidence is circumstancial at best.

_{[And he looks up again and he's so infinitely sad and completely accepting of this, that this is what he becomes, have already became.]}

I need you to remember this in order to prevent it. I told Harry a few things - not all of it. I ... I hate having to ask this of you. But I don't know what else I can do.

_{[Other than guard dead girls and keep an eye on the beings that talk so strangled and stilted and only in riddles he understands the meanings of but yet find to not make any sense at all.]}

Where am I. Why wasn't I there.

[What kept me away, he means, because clearly it must've been wild horses or the equivalent, if Coop got himself into this much trouble and nobody thought to call him.

He hates that look in Cooper's eyes, but they have to finish this before he can take the steps necessary to drive it away. This is too important, and if there's one thing they all learned from Laura Palmer, it's that you have to put the job before sentimentality first.]

How do I get him out of you.

[Say your newfound psychic mumbo-jumbo gave you new clarity and insight. Don't say it's the same way as Leland.]

You're there. You're helping me investigate Windom's disappearance.

_{[There's almost - almost - abysmal black humour in the way he says that, because the man Albert is helping at present back in San Francisco is an imitation. But there's nothing funny about any of this, no matter how you look at it.]

[And Cooper seems to balance on something for a little while, but he still stands there, steady, both feet on Johto ground. The thing is, though, he still sees the Lodge in his mind and he knows where he belongs. Maybe that's where it finally shows, the strain, the tear, the pressure of it all, and most of all the hopelessness.]}

I don't know. Believe me, I wish I knew. I tried- I tried to change the way things happened, prevent getting trapped. It didn't work.

_{[Time is fluid in the Lodge, he'd figured that out pretty quickly. It had taken him longer to find a way to use it. But then maybe just because of that, it might not have taken him any time at all. (Or all the time in the world, en entire eternity.)]}

That's not what I meant.

[What he meant was probably something closer to, why didn't I get there in time, but the answer he gets is chilling anyway. Given the choice between the two, he'd rather take too far to help than too stupid to notice there's something wrong.

He'd notice if there were something wrong with Cooper, wouldn't he? Everybody noticed there was something wrong with Leland Palmer, even if nobody knew precisely what. Damn small-town yokels had just chalked it up to hysteria over his kid.

What's he chalking it up to, if he hasn't noticed that something's wrong with Cooper?]

Okay. So I can't stop you from getting in, is that what you're saying? But I can do something about after. When he's pretending to be you.

[And it's his pure straightforward cynicism that leads him to the obvious conclusion first — probably the one Cooper's been wanting him to draw all along.

He's not asking to be saved. He's asking to be stopped.

And if for some reason Albert can't do both, then he's well aware which one Cooper's asking him to choose.]

Annie Blackburn. Harry'll know who she is?

_{[The thing is that BOB had Leland for years even before Laura died. This is something that Cooper now understands more clearly than he ever wished to know, but that man has more lives on his hands than the three they know about, and yet ... I did not kill anybody.]

[The other thing is that despite that, of course Albert noticed. There's been moments where BOB has slipped up and Coop knows this, but why would anyone assume that Cooper is no longer there when everybody can blame it on him not being quite right after getting out of a place like hell itself?]

[But Albert is noticing if he isn't yet he inevitably well, and that means he's in danger.]

[Cooper doesn't say any of this. He watches his friend quietly, watches him think, and that silence is confirmation enough in place of the 'yes' he's not voicing.]

[He answers the question, though. Of course he does. This is information that needs to be shared.]}

She's the sister of Norma Jennings. You remember her?

_{[Harry will know. Albert too, now.]}

The blonde at the diner with the pies you're in love with.

[There's something that compels him to throw in that last little bit of commentary there, and he's not sure why. The pies you're in love with. Maybe it's because a part of him hates this Cooper standing in front of him, so calm and weary and resigned. He's mocked and derided that bright-eyed puppy dog optimism for years now, and oh, what he wouldn't give to see it again right now.]

I didn't know she had a sister.

_{[And there's nothing bright about the solemn nod to tell Albert he's right.]}

She lived in a convent for a time before she came back to Twin Peaks.

_{[A neat explanation for why a lot of them didn't know. That, and it was hardly relevant to their cases, and maybe something Norma would have liked to keep a bit discrete anyway, given what had happened in Annie's life that Cooper had only gotten to know parts of.]

[Being forced to betray that trust put in him weighs heavy on his shoulders, slows his movements a fraction.]}

[That is a neat explanation. It's also one that sets Albert to wondering why Cooper knows it. Why some girl that nobody'd ever heard of before her miraculous return to Petticoat Junction? What's the connection to this? How'd she get tangled up with Cooper?

It's only because Albert's been doing this a long time, and because he knows Coop's track record, and because he knows how to put two and two together from the things that have been said — Cooper threw himself to the wolves for Annie Blackburn's sake, and Windom Earle is in play, and this is sounding entirely too much like a variation on a theme he's never wanted to hear again, a reprise of a cacophony he's long since grown to loathe.]

You love her?

[Maybe it's brutal, considering. Maybe he wants it to be a little brutal, just on the off-chance that he'll manage to see Cooper feel something again.]

_{[If he wants a reaction, he gets one, but it's probably a rather disappointing one all in all. There's a smile but it's hollow: a ghost of his usual sunny one. He's remembering a deceased. He remembers beating her down. The memories are all his despite the fact that he did nothing.]

[And yet, she's right there with him at times, amid the drapes. He supposes he does love her sometimes just for that even if it's tainted by the strangled words between them and the occasional white of her eyes.]}

I feared for her, Albert. Fear opens the door.

_{[It wasn't about love even in the reality where he never met one Carmen Sandiego. It was always about his fear that someone would once again die because of him. That's why he had to follow, first of all. If he had followed simply because of love he would have found himself someplace else.]}

Windom.

[Leave it to Windom Earle to do it. Love was a foreign thing to the guy — maybe not always, but certainly so after he'd gone crackers — but fear? Fear he excelled at. Especially when it came to instilling it in one Dale Cooper.

So Windom played with fire and Cooper got burned. Why is he entirely unsurprised by that.]

I'll stop you, Coop.

[He should've said he'd stop Windom, maybe, but there's a finality to the story Cooper's been telling that makes him think the chances of that are slim — and besides, it ends with Windom Earle sleeping in the bed he made for himself, anyway. So be it.]

011 | Saffron City | Action;

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