011 | Saffron City | Action;

[worktodo]

[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.]

Comments

[tapestodiane]

<sub>[Funny, that tree looks exactly like the tree him and Carmen climbed once. Coop looks up at it with a small, bittersweet smile as he passes, and a similar look is directed towards Albert when he shifts his attention his way.]

[Because of course Albert is here, and of course Cooper finds him, because they have things to talk about.]</sub>

[estimates]

[Oh, hey.

That's weird. The tree. Sam's pretty sure he didn't notice that on his first pass around the perimeter of the house.

And is that — ?

A voice floats up from Albert's side, just like the thing that is literally floating near the source of said voice's shaggy blond head.]

Agent Rosenfield?

[worktodo]

[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.]

[worktodo]

[No, it's not.

No, it's not.

THAT VOICE.

he would know that voice anywhere and he does not want to know that voice]

What.

[WHAT IS THIS, HIS PERSONAL HELL?]

[estimates]

[Oh, yeah. That's totally Agent Rosenfield. No further confirmation needed. Sam squints, and Edmund the Solosis floooooats right up to eye-level with Albert, also squinting.]

What are you doing here?

[worktodo]

[...Albert is not entirely sure which he is more affronted about having on his property: a squishy green alien blob or Sam Stanley.

He decides to settle for "both".]

Perfecting the ancient art of bonsai pruning — the hell does it look like I'm doing here?

[estimates]

Drinking coffee and talking to me.

[ALBERT, Y U ASK THINGS?

Edmund drifts around to the back of Albert's head, then returns to orbiting Sam's. There's a lengthy pause, then:]

I didn't see any bonsai on your property. I was in the backyard before. But that's a very nice pool you have.

[worktodo]

[This is why he cannot have Sam Stanley anywhere near his person, job, lab, or preferably, choice of home continent. No appreciation for sarcasm.]

Why are you traipsing all over my property?

[Actually, more relevantly: ]

Why are you here?

[estimates]

[Good clarification, Albert, because he was about to point out that he's not traipsing. He's not even moving! Silly goose.]

I don't know. I was at the office about an hour ago.

[worktodo]

[Surely even Gandhi could not have infinite patience when it comes to contending with Sam Stanley.

Speaking of which, his namesake the hovering shiny Metang chooses precisely that moment to come wafting out, accidentally bumping into Edmund as he does.

WHOOPS. SORRY, FRIEND. DID NOT SEE YOU THERE.]

And now you're here.

[Dammit. Coop said he'd showed up once, and then ended up here permanently not long after. Harry'd shown up briefly, and then he was here.

IF SAM STANLEY IS HERE NOW AND HE APPEARS AGAIN IN SHORT ORDER IN JOHTO—]

[tapestodiane]

Temporarily, Albert.

<sub>[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.]</sub>

But I'm happy to be here.

[deputybadass]

[And here's Andy.

Andy is wearing a pair of bright orange swimming trunks with a rather large (and obnoxious) floatation device around his waist standing poolside.

He gives his ol' pal, Albert a friendly wave.]

[worktodo]

[...His eye twitches uncontrollably.]

...What.

[No wait, hang on, he will articulate that better when he's not trying so hard to contain the full force of his scathing vitriol that he's been reduced to monosyllabic discourse.]

What. Are you doing.

[worktodo]

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.]

[tapestodiane]

I was.

<sub>[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.]</sub>

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.

[deputybadass]

[Oh no. Albert is giving him them eyes again. He must be mad about something.



Probably science related.]

Going swimming?

[worktodo]

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?

[worktodo]

[His head is going to actually explode. WHERE IS HARRY.]

And you really don't think there's anything in the world you could possibly be doing that's a little more important than that?

[tapestodiane]

_{[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.]}

[nowherefast]

<sub>[The thing about Laura is that no matter what happens to her she just kind of tends to roll with it. Except for when it's really awful, in which case she'll fight tooth and nail first, but for the most part she tries to see where things go or minimize the friction between her and whatever is going on to have a lesser chance of damage.]

[Sometimes that doesn't work out. Most of the time it does.]

[Point is, she doesn't know this place well at all and the house is one she's never seen before. But she pauses next to it because of the tree, puts a hand lightly to its trunk and looks up into the branches. It all paints an oddly serene picture. Like she has all the time in the world for this.]

[You'd have no idea that in a different reality, she's dead and buried.]</sub>

[worktodo]

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.

[worktodo]

[You'd have no idea, except that Albert would.

He'd gotten quite up close and personal with Miss Laura Palmer for the duration of time he'd had access to her in the morgue. There's a way to phrase that, he knows, to make it sound like innuendo, crass and unsettling, but that's not the kind of black humor that tends to come with the people who spend their days in autopsy theaters. At least, not when you're Albert. Some people need the sick humor because it's the only thing that keeps them going, is laughing at anything they can find to laugh at because if they don't have something to laugh at they'll lose it. Albert's a little more resilient than that. There's a certain peace that comes with what he does, and while he may be blunt and straightforward about what he does, he doesn't make light of it.

He knows Laura Palmer probably about as well as a lot of people knew Laura Palmer. And that's her, standing under his tree, looking up at it like she's never seen such a stunning representation of arboreal majesty before.

This is going to be a strange meeting. He can't say that he's never talked to a dead girl before, because he has. He's talked to a lot of them.

This'll just be the first time, he muses, that the dead girl talks back — not with her corpse, with the evidence left behind, the clues she paid her life for so that someone like him might be able to follow them after she was gone. Just with her own mouth. Her own voice.

Yeah, this is going to be a trip.]

Laura Palmer.

[He doesn't say it like a question, and he doesn't append the instinctive "You" onto the front of it. He knows who she is, and so does she. No point in stating the obvious.]

[tapestodiane]

<sub>[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.]</sub>

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.]}

[worktodo]

[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.]

[nowherefast]

<sub>[She turns at the sound of his voice - had been aware of his presence before he spoke but only in that distant sort of way. He hadn't been important to her and so she hadn't paid him attention, but by knowing her name and saying it with such certainty, that makes him exactly that. Or if not important, then at least of interest, so the look she gives him is a mix of both curious and wary.]

[Only so much, though. She makes sure to also keep it plain, to not give anything away until she knows who this man is and why he knows her.]</sub>

Yes.

_{[A simple confirmation with a fairly expectant tone, although she doesn't ask him who he is in turn. He'll either tell her himself or she'll find out. It's how it goes.]}