Chapter Text
?tsap ti si ro ,erutuf ti sI
Monochrome floor patterns. Red drapes. Each step forward was a step backward. Time froze, yet simultaneously flowed freely. Fire, the core of the soul, eaten for sustenance.
He could not breathe. He could not speak. Reality warped in on itself, and he was running and something was chasing him. Some things. As if in a nightmare where the danger could not be outrun, he raced as fast as his feet would allow him, and did not budge an inch. Home. He needed to get home. Save someone—that was why he was there—and there was a man, mirroring his very self. A shattered self-portrait.
A shattered mirror.
“I have to brush my teeth,” he said, and his tongue was loose, lips numb, yet his hands were steady, movements calculated and controlled. There lingered the scent of Douglas firs, the wood of the Great Northern, but it was all so distant, like a dream. They all lived inside a dream, like someone had told him a year ago, but his head was heavy and he couldn’t remember what or who said it. Palms grasped the porcelain sink, dark eyes staring in the mirror at his reflection, but the one staring back was not himself, and Dale Cooper remembered, then. His ears rang, body afire, flames licking at his flesh, his soul, and he saw Leland Palmer’s skull bashed in, he saw him on the floor and pleading for forgiveness and oh God Harry, Harry this wasn’t him, he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t.
Sharp pain exploded across his skull. Blood dripped from his forehead, down his nose. His chin lifted, and he saw It. His soul writhed, his lips drawing back in a painful grin as he laughed. How’s Annie? it mocked. His head pounded, and again it cackled. How’s Annie? How’s Annie? How’s Annie?
He could not scream, for his mouth was not his own, and he fell, and fell, and fell into a world of red and black and white, of fire and pain, between time and space and death.
A sharp gasp, and consciousness slowly, gradually returned. Shapes and figures too blurred to make out clearly, Special Agent Dale Cooper blinked rapidly, hissing as he became aware of an acute pain pulsing from the center of his forehead. Dizzy, he allowed his head to fall back against the pillows, lifting his hand to where the pain was located. His fingertips brushed a wad of gauze, just the very edges, when something grabbed his forearm. He jerked in shock, whipping his head to the side and squeezing his eyes to clear his vision, and was greeted by a familiar face.
“Careful, Coop,” said Harry Truman, gently releasing Dale’s arm. “You’re still healing.” He sat in the cushioned chair beside the bed, above him a plastic bag of saline, and only then it occurred to Cooper: he was in a hospital.
Shifting where he lay on the apparent hospital bed, Cooper sat up straight, shaking his head and wincing at another pang of agony that cut through his skull. More than anything, he wanted out of here. “Harry,” Dale said, “what happened?” He paled, adding, “It seems I’ve lost all recollection of events within the last several hours. What day is it? How long have I been unconscious?” A horror crept upon his shoulders, his hands fisting in the sheets. “Is Annie all right?”
Windom Earle, Miss Twin Peaks, Annie Blackburn. Her wellbeing was in jeopardy, and Cooper could not allow another tragedy to occur as the result of his own foolishness. He began to tear free of the sheets, but Harry once again moved forward to steady him, this time pressing his hands against Cooper’s shoulders.
“You really don’t remember?” Harry asked, to which Dale shook his head. The sigh that escaped the sheriff’s lips did not do well to put Cooper at ease. “It’s the 28th, Coop. Miss Twin Peaks was two days ago.” Harry glanced towards the window, while Dale’s gaze darted to the clock on the far wall: 1:19 in the afternoon. “Windom Earle interrupted the competition after Annie won,” continued Truman, and Dale’s chest tightened. “He kidnapped her, and we followed them to Glastonbury Grove. From there, um…”
Harry fell silent. Dale’s breathing stopped short. His memories were shattered and disjointed, coming to him in pieces. Curtains and Laura Palmer and Caroline. A man in blue. Something Cooper should have remembered, something long ago. His stomach turned. “Harry, go on,” he urged. “Please.” A flicker of fear and confusion crossed Harry’s expression, and he took a controlled breath before continuing.
“The circle of trees… when we arrived, you stopped, like in a trance. You told me you needed to go alone. I don’t know what I saw—I must have been seeing things—but…”
He told Dale of the red curtains, about how he waited there all night and all day, how Annie was alive but unlike herself, how Dale was found in the bathroom with gash on his forehead, and was interrupted when, in the present moment, Cooper lurched forward and vomited on the sheets in front of him.
Harry jerked back in shock, swearing under his breath. He jumped to his feet and rushed into the bathroom, all while Cooper took a shuddering inhale, hanging his head and hacking up the spit dangling from his lips. It had come upon him so suddenly. His hand slid down, under the blankets and over his abdomen. Surely, he was bleeding. Surely, Windom Earle had stabbed him. He flinched, felt nothing, and a migraine pounded in his head. He retched and realized he had nothing more in his stomach, leaving him to lean back against the pillows and clutch the side railings of the bed. The IV in his arm radiated with pain, but he did not have the time to consider removing it as Harry returned seconds later with a handful of towels. The soiled sheets were ripped from him, rolled into a ball and tossed aside, the towels used to wipe the thick, yellow bile from Cooper’s chin and hospital gown.
Dale’s head swam. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“Don’t apologize,” Harry said, shaking his head. “Just—here, use these to wipe yourself off. I’m gonna get a nurse.”
Time passed slowly when Harry left him. The towel Harry had so graciously given Dale fell from his grasp as he teetered on the edge of awareness. He could not maintain it a second longer. Red blinded his vision, visions of knives, pale horses, and little men flashing in quick succession as he slipped away.
Blissfully, he did not dream, and when he woke, Cooper’s gown and sheets had been changed. A woman he did not recognize stood close by, Harry and Doc Hayward at the far end.
“Oh, good,” Hayward sighed. “I was worried we’d lost you. Some slip you had there at the Great Northern, Agent Cooper.” Dale swallowed thickly and did not reply. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a ton of bricks has been dropped on my skull.” At least he was honest. “Harry told me I… had a fall. That’s why my head…?”
“Indeed,” Doc Hayward confirmed. “Severe concussion, and lacerations on your forehead that required several stitches. No wonder you’re in considerable pain.” He gestured to the woman, the nurse, adjusting Cooper’s IV. “The morphine should help. You’d better rest.”
Unease twisted in Dale’s stomach, but the pain in his head proved to be worse. His eyes screwed shut. “Doc—what happened to Annie?” Who’s Annie? How’s Annie?
“She’s awake, but unresponsive,” was Doc Hayward’s reply. “As far as we can tell, she suffered no injuries, but her mental state is worrisome. Catatonic. I’m very sorry.” He grimaced. “We’re monitoring her and hoping she returns to her normal self sooner rather than later. It would help for us to know exactly what she experienced, but Harry tells me your memory of the past couple nights is unclear.”
“I don’t remember much at all,” Cooper admitted, sighing. “God, Annie…can I see her?”
“Absolutely not,” Harry cut in. “You’re not stable right now, Coop. You’re staying in bed until Doc says you’re fit to move about.”
Helpless, Dale did not put up a fight. He recalled the weeks following Caroline’s murder, when he was bedridden and on the brink of death.
Caroline. He’d seen her there. Among the curtains. Among Them. A thing wore his face and he ran and He followed and Dale was not the same as he was before he walked past the threshold. Twenty-five years. It felt like a dream. Sleep beckoned him, entreating him to return to that dreadful place.
It was useless. Darkness crept at the edges of his vision. Harry’s voice was distant, muttering something along the lines of get some rest, Cooper, and that was that. A weak sound of protest slipped past his lips, and he was falling again.
Somewhere, a phone rang.
Albert Rosenfield closed the window of his hotel room with a sigh, snuffing his cigarette in the ashtray he held in his hand. Just over a week had passed since he left Twin Peaks, and there had been nothing but radio silence. He’d considered giving that rinky-dink sheriff’s department a ring, if only to ask about everyone’s well-being, but quickly decided against it. To remain in touch was one matter; to act clingy and desperate was another. Where once he’d held animosity towards Sheriff Truman, now the two of them had grown a strong bond, particularly through their affection for Dale Cooper.
Cooper himself was a different story altogether, a story he hadn’t the mental energy to ponder with the headache that had begun to bloom. Buttoning the top buttons of his shirt, Albert made for his suitcase, producing a tie and setting it around his shoulders. Another long night of drinking, it seemed, before he returned to Philadelphia on behalf of Gordon Cole. He didn’t want to leave, especially considering Windom Earle’s presence and Josie Packard’s involvement with the sheriff, but Cole was persistent. Unfortunately.
He’d just finished tying his tie, moving to sift through his various jackets, when his hotel room’s phone rang. He paused, glancing over his shoulder at the nightstand. After all of his pondering, had God, or whatever higher power existed out there, been listening? Abandoning his clothing choices for the time being, he rushed over, picking up the phone and holding it to his ear. “Hello?”
On the other line, he heard muffled sounds of shuffling. No immediate answer came, and so, very easily aggravated, Albert repeated himself. This time, there came a familiar voice: “Albert.”
His eyes widened. “Coop?”
“It’s so wonderful to hear your voice.”
“Jesus,” Albert sighed, relieved. “Yeah, could say the same here. What the hell have you been up to?”
“I need help, Albert.”
Albert tensed, his posture straightening. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”
“I’m afraid I’ve made a terrible mistake, Albert. A terrible mistake.”
“What are you talking about? Look, I don’t have the time for your cryptic nonsense, can you please get to the point?”
Dale paused, and Albert waited on the edge. “I’ve put you all in great danger. I never should have gone after her alone.”
“Her?” His heart plummeted. “Who?”
“I’m so sorry. Please get here quickly, Albert. I hope you can forgive me.”
“Dale—”
The line disconnected. Struck into silence, Albert stared down at the phone, unable to process anything he’d just heard. He couldn’t remember the last time Cooper had sounded so helpless and distraught. Not since…
He set the phone back on the receiver, knowing exactly who he’d call next, pressing the buttons frantically before his buzzing thoughts could catch up with him. On the other line, a bubbling female voice answered. “Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department, how can I help you?”
The receptionist. Albert groaned, rubbing his temples. “Lucy, it’s Albert. Albert Rosenfield.”
“Oh… hi, Agent Rosenfield.”
“Yeah, hi. Listen, is Harry around?” The other line went quiet. “Lucy?”
“Sheriff Truman’s at the hospital with Agent Cooper.”
“What?!” He was seconds from throwing and shattering the phone against the wall. He hadn’t been away from Twin Peaks for long, so what could have possibly happened between then and now?
“It’s a long story, but um, after what happened at Miss Twin Peaks, Agent Cooper went missing, and Sheriff Truman waited all day and night for him, until Agent Cooper appeared again. And then he bumped his head in the bathroom.”
Stunned, Albert did not reply. He hadn’t the ability to be coherent after listening to that. Sitting down on the bed, he snapped his eyes shut, counted to ten, and reached over to grab a slip of paper and pen from the nightstand drawer. “Lucy, can you give me the number of the hospital?”
After ten minutes of talking to the hospital’s front desk receptionist and waiting impatiently for another human being to pick up the damn phone, someone finally answered. “Hello?”
Sheriff Harry S. Truman, thank Christ. “Harry, what the fuck is going on?”
“Albert,” Harry gasped. “God, it’s good to hear from you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Can you give me a rundown of exactly what happened in the past eight days since I left that backwater town?”
A sigh on the other end. “I should’ve called you, it was just…”
“Well, you didn’t,” Albert snapped, “and now, just twenty minutes ago, I received a highly distressing call from Cooper, telling me he made a ‘terrible mistake’ before hanging up without any explanation.”
“Wait, Coop—”
“Then I’m on the line with your receptionist, who mentions something about a ‘Miss Twin Peaks’, and that Cooper disappeared and bumped his head? What the fuck is going on, Harry?”
Harry groaned, and Albert inhaled sharply, rubbing his forehead nervously. His headache had worsened, and he was sure his blood pressure had skyrocketed.
“Okay,” Harry said, “I’ll try and make it brief.”
To the best of Harry’s abilities, he proceeded to do just that, going on to relay the information that (in the span of six days) Dale Cooper had gotten involved with a woman, Windom Earle had put her in danger, and now both she and Cooper were in the hospital. Albert was at a loss for words for the second time that day. It was exactly what he’d feared.
It was Caroline Earle all over again.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He gripped the phone so tightly he was sure it would break. “Please tell me this is some sick joke.”
“I wish it were. I’m sorry, Albert. I’m worried about Coop myself. I don’t know how he even called you in the first place…”
Lowering the phone in the middle of Harry’s sentence, Albert stood and paced his room, swearing under his breath, running a hand through his hair multiple times. There was no question about it: he needed to return to that hick town now.
“…Albert? Albert, are you there?”
Groaning, Albert lifted the phone to his ear. “What happened to them? Are they in stable condition?”
“I-I don’t know what happened to them.” Harry did not sound entirely convincing, but Albert reserved his suspicions of his honesty for later. “They disappeared in the middle of Glastonbury Grove, and when they returned, Windom Earle was gone and they were both unconscious. Annie’s practically catatonic, and Coop’s… not doing too hot. Distant. He hit his head hard in the bathroom this morning and had to get stitches.”
Albert released a heavy sigh. “Unbelievable. How did he hit his head?”
“He said he slipped. The mirror was shattered.”
As with Harry’s previous statement, something didn’t add up. “He slipped and hit his head on the mirror?”
“Well—”
“No, no, don’t try and rationalize that clearly bogus story. I’m not in the mood.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, thoroughly exhausted and tense with anxiety. “I’ll be there in two hours tops. I’m leaving my hotel now.”
“Alright. We’ll see you soon.”
Without saying his goodbyes, Albert slammed the phone on the receiver and buried his face in his hands. Just when he thought Cooper had learned, he turned right back around and got himself into trouble again. That town was nothing but trouble, and he never should have let those two out of his sight. This was his fault, and now he had to make it right.
He turned toward the nightstand again, picked up the phone, and dialed one more number, not waiting for the person on the other end to get a word out when they answered.
“Gordon, change of plans! You need to come down here immediately!”
The situation couldn’t look any Bluer.
“Coop?”
Harry Truman poked his head into the hospital room Dale Cooper had been assigned to. After his phone call with Albert, something had nagged at him desperately. In the state that he’d seen Cooper in, how could he have possibly made that phone call? The man was sound asleep when he left him, and that was only twenty minutes ago. He had to see with his own eyes that Cooper was safe and in the same place Harry left him.
To his shock, he discovered that this wasn’t the case. Stepping inside the room and rubbing his tired eyes, he realized what he was seeing was not a hallucination from his sleep-deprived state. The bed was empty.
Panicking, Harry rushed out of the room and grabbed the first nurse he saw, telling her that one of their patients had gone missing. When she left to find help, he began to stalk the hospital halls himself, determined to find the agent. He couldn’t have gone far in such little time. Someone must have noticed. Harry wracked his brain to deduce when and why Cooper would have even left his bed in the first place.
And then it hit him: Annie Blackburn. Cooper had mentioned wanting to see her in spite of his condition. Harry didn’t think he’d actually move forward with it, but then again, this was the man who immediately got up and continued working after suffering a potentially fatal gunshot wound to the chest.
Annie was being kept in the ICU. Truman picked up the pace, reading the signs along the walls that directed him to his destination, passing various medical staff and the like along the way. Come on, Coop. Don’t disappear on me again.
He hurried past the automatic doors and approached the help desk, asking the woman behind it if she would kindly direct him to Annie Blackburn’s room. She pointed in the general direction, gave him her room number, and he moved with a quick urgency. He was a few rooms away from Annie’s when he caught a figure in his peripheral. A flash of blue. Skidding to a stop in his tracks, Harry blinked, shaking his head. Massaging his tired eyes, he turned around and peeked into the room he’d just passed, the door ajar. Lying there, injured and unconscious, was Audrey Horne.
Standing at her bedside? Agent Cooper himself, still as a statue.
“Coop!” Harry entered the room, looking over Audrey’s sleeping form. The poor girl appeared as though she’d gone through hell, her face swollen and bruised, a brace around her neck. Dale stood there, unresponsive, his eyes narrowed at her. It made Harry uneasy. “Cooper,” he said in a hushed tone, approaching Dale and grasping his arm. “Snap out of it.”
Yet Dale did not even acknowledge Harry’s presence. Lips pressed into a thin line, Harry grabbed Cooper’s arm, attempting to guide him away. He noticed the trickle of blood down his other forearm, where he must have removed the IV. It collected in a puddle on the floor, leaving a trail as he walked. His eyes never left Audrey for a moment. “Let’s get you back to your room, Coop,” Harry said, tugging him away forcefully, and ignoring the growing pit of fear at the bottom of his stomach. “Come on.”
Thick fog clouded the mind. A deafening sound filled the air. His body, moving independently of his will. I always thought you knew it was me, he said, as his form contorted and shifted into something else entirely. It bent him at the spine to murmur vile truths that only she could hear, and why did this feel so familiar? He could not see, but he felt. He felt her, and he wanted her.
Don’t make me do this. How do you know what she likes? You look so much like my Laura.
He tasted sweet cream and copper, and unbridled rage coursed through his veins. His anger burned with a red-hot intensity, hotter than the fresh blood that trickled down his throat. It burned his esophagus like fire. Fire, walk with me, and oh. He knew now. He understood. Wake up, he needed to wake up. Someone please wake him up. Wake up wake up wake up. He was burning alive. Couldn’t anyone hear him, couldn't anyone see him?
His head whipped around, vision blurred by curtains surrounding him at every angle. A prison of velvet. The statue at the end of the hall beckoned, and he followed, entering the room on the right. He faced himself, and froze. No, no, get away.
.deliaf uoY
What? What do you mean?
.deliaf uoY
and then his reflection was smiling, pale eyes vacant,
.yllaniF
The floor cracked beneath him. Dale Cooper blinked, and he was twenty-five years older, sitting in an armchair and listening to a beautiful woman whisper secrets into his ear.